“We are almost led to the wish to see the European soldier similarly prepared for his toilsome march, unencumbered by the unyielding shoe, which sometimes becomes in the day a source of greater annoyance than of comfort to him. He would be enabled to undertake fatigue and privations for which he is now totally unprepared. He would find an elastic tread, a firm command over his muscular system, follow upon such a plan. He would be capable of making a charge upon the enemy with greater steadiness, and enabled to bear the shock which he is now less capable of resisting. In this respect we should do well to imitate the native soldier of India, who, under the English banner, has followed a Clive, a Hastings, or a Keane, when the British soldier has almost sunk from the insuperable difficulties which attend wearing all parts of the dress he has been accustomed to do in England, forgetful of the climate in which he is placed.”
For upward of twenty years as a bootmaker, I have made the feet my study, and during that period many thousand pairs of feet have received my attention. I have observed with minute care the cast from the antique as well as “the modern instances,” and I am obliged to admit, that much of the pain I have witnessed, much of the distortion of the toes, the corns on the top of the feet, the bunion on the side, the callosities beneath, and the growing-in of the nails between, are attributable to the shoemaker. The feet, with proper treatment, might be as free from disease and pain as the hands; their structure and adaptation to the wants and comfort of man, as we have seen, is most perfect. Thirty-six bones and thirty-six joints have been given by the Creator to form one of these members, and yet man cramps, cabins, and confines, his beautiful arrangements of one hundred and forty-four bones and joints, together with muscles, elastic cartilage, lubricating oily fluid, veins, and arteries, into a pair of shoes or boots, which, instead of protecting from injury, produces the most painful as well as permanent results. Many volumes have been written on the cause of corns, and it has been my lot to wade through many of them, without gaining much for my pains. I have therefore arrived at the conclusion, notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary, that corns are in all cases the result of pressure.
I am confirmed in this opinion by one of the most respectable chiropodists of the present day (Mr. Durlacher), a gentleman who has had a considerable experience in the treatment of corns and bunions. He says:—
“Pressure and friction are unquestionably the predisposing causes of corns, although, in some instances, they are erroneously supposed to be hereditary. Improperly-made shoes invariably produce pressure upon the integuments of the toes and prominent parts of the feet, to which is opposed a corresponding resistance from the bone immediately beneath, in consequence of which the vessels of the dermis are compressed between them, become injured, congested, and, after a time, hypertrophied.
“When corns are produced by friction and slight pressure, they are the result of the shoes being too large and the leather hard, so that, by the extension of the foot, the little toe, or any prominent part, is constantly being rubbed and compressed by its own action.
“This may continue on and off for months, or even years, before any inconvenience is experienced, but, progressively, the cuticle increases, and is either detached from the dermis by serum being poured out between them, similar to a common blister, and a new covering produced, or the epidermis thickens into layers adhering to each other.”
Chiropodists have been in the habit of classifying corns into—
1. Hard corns.
2. Soft corns.
3. Bleeding corns.