In consequence, a group of non-medical practitioners, styling themselves chiropodists, assumed to care for the foot woes of the public. They claimed no scientific knowledge of the feet, but announced their ability, acquired in the school of experience, to care for the minor foot-ills of the public which were largely induced by the wearing of badly constructed foot-gear. These practitioners were primarily usually itinerants. They went about from town to town carrying their kits, which contained knives and medications which they and their predecessors had found useful in plying their craft. They flourished in England in the eighteenth and in the nineteenth centuries, and soon after our government was founded they began to appear in the larger centers of the United States.
The knowledge which they acquired was imparted to their apprentices, who were usually their offspring, and so this practice was largely handed down from father to son.
Chiropody Development
In 1895 they had grown so numerous in New York City that they organized a State Society and the State legislature chartered their organization and gave them power to license others who wished to practice similarly. Many other states gradually enacted like laws.
In 1912 the Pedic Society of the State of New York again went to the legislature and secured the passage of a law which required academic qualifications of students of chiropody and established a standard for chiropody teaching institutions.
The law also provided that no person should practice chiropody after that date, unless previously licensed, who failed to pass a state chiropody licensing examination conducted by the State Board of Medical Examiners. Since then twenty-three other commonwealths in the United States have passed similar laws.
Recently the term podiatry was made synonymous with chiropody in several states. Thus, from a trade, chiropody has been transformed into a scientific branch of medicine.
Schools and Their Curricula
The teaching schools have faculties made up of doctors of medicine, chemists and podiatrists. The outlined courses of study include instruction in the following topics: Anatomy, Histology, Chemistry, Physiology, Hygiene, Materia Medica, Therapeutics, Pharmacy, Surgery, Bacteriology, Pathology, Dermatology, The Principles of Medicine, Ethics, The History of Podiatry, Foot-Gear, Orthopedics, Massage, Electro-Therapeutics, Posture Studies and X-Ray work.
No man should take up a career in podiatry unless he is prepared to devote all of his energy to his studies because the work accomplished in the course, as it is at present carried on, crowds the equivalent of two years at a medical school into the one year of podiatry. This means unusual application because the work must be accomplished or the student fails to graduate.