But as a large portion of mankind tread on artificial hard surfaces, especially pavements, their feet are subjected to a very unnatural amount of wear and tear. How great this is the inhabitants of cities are apt to forget. After passing some months in the country, we have repeatedly found ourselves terribly lamed and shaken by our first walk on the pavement. A party of city-folk who landed on a beach upon Cape Cod complained greatly to one of the natives accompanying them of the difficulty of walking through the deep sand. "Ah," he answered, "it's nothing to the trouble I have walking on your city-sidewalks." To save the feet from the effects of violent percussion and uneven surfaces, they must be protected by thick soles, and thick soles require strong upper-leather. When the foot is wedged into one of these casings, a new boot, a struggle begins between them, which ends in a compromise. The foot becomes more or less compressed or deformed, and the boot more or less stretched at the points where the counter-pressure takes place.
On the part of the foot, the effects of this warfare are liable to show themselves in thickening and inflammation of the integuments, in displacement of the toes, and occasionally in the breaking down of the transverse or longitudinal arches. On the part of the boot or shoe, there is a gradual accommodation which in time fits it to the foot almost as if it had been moulded upon it, so that a little before it is worn out it is invaluable, like other blessings brightening before they take their flight.
Now Mr. Plumer's improvements proceed from two series of data. First, certain theoretical inferences from the facts above named. Finding the arches liable to break down, he supports the transverse arch by making the inner surface of the sole corresponding to it convex instead of concave transversely; he makes the middle portion of the sole convex again in both directions to support the longitudinal arch, and for the same reason extends the heel of the boot or shoe forward, so as to support the anterior portion of the heel of the foot. Secondly, Mr. Plumer takes an old shoe that has done good service, and studies the reliefs and hollows-which the foot has shaped on the inner surface of its sole. Comparing the empirical results of this examination with those based on the anatomical data above given, and finding a general coincidence in them, he constructs his last in accordance with their joint teachings. Theoretically, Mr. Plumer is on somewhat dangerous ground. If the arches of the foot are made to yield like elliptical springs, why support them? But we subject them to such unnatural conditions by pressure from above over the instep, by adding high heels to our boots and shoes, by taking away all yielding qualities from the soil on which we tread, that very probably they may want artificial support as much as the soles of the feet want artificial protection. If, now, we find that an old, easy shoe has worked the inside surface of its sole into convexities which support the arches, we are safe in imitating that at any rate. We shall have a new shoe with some, at least, of the virtues of the old one.
This all sounds very well, and the next question is, whether it works well. We cannot but remember the coat made for Mr. Gulliver by the Laputan tailors, which, though projected from the most refined geometrical data and the most profound calculations, he found to be the worst fit he ever put on his back. We must ask those who have eaten the pudding how it tastes, and those who have worn the shoe how it wears. We have no satisfactory experience of our own, having only within a week or two, by mere accident, stumbled into a pair of Plumerian boots, and being thus led to look into a matter which seemed akin to the main subject of this paper. But the author of "Views Afoot," who ought to be a sovereign authority on all that interests pedestrians, confirms from his own experience the favorable opinions expressed by several of our most eminent physicians, from an examination of the principles of construction. We are informed that the Plumer last has been recently adopted for the use of the army. We add our own humble belief that Dr. Plumer deserves well of mankind for applying sound anatomical principles to the construction of coverings for the feet, and for contriving a last serving as a model for a boot or shoe which is adapted to the form of the foot from the first, instead of having to be broken in by a painful series of limping excursions, too often accompanied by impatient and even profane utterances.
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It is not two years since the sight of a person who had lost one of his lower limbs was an infrequent occurrence. Now, alas! there are few of us who have not a cripple among our friends, if not in our own families. A mechanical art which provided for an occasional and exceptional want has become a great and active branch of industry. War unmakes legs, and human skill must supply their places as it best may.
Our common idea of a wooden leg is realized in the "peg" of the Greenwich pensioner. This humble contrivance has done excellent service in its time, and may serve a good purpose still in some cases. A plain working-man, who has outlived his courting-days and need not sacrifice much to personal appearance, may find an honest, old-fashioned wooden leg, cheap, lasting, requiring no repairs, the best thing for his purpose. In higher social positions, and at an age when appearances are realities, in the condition of the Marquis of Anglesea, for instance, it becomes important to provide the cripple with a limb which shall be presentable in polite society, where misfortunes of a certain obtrusiveness may be pitied, but are never tolerated under the chandeliers.
The leg invented by Mr. Potts, and bearing the name of the "Anglesea leg," was long famous, and doubtless merited the reputation it acquired as superior to its predecessors. But legs cannot remain stationary while the march of improvement goes on around them, and they, too, have moved onward with the stride of progress.
A boy of ten years old, living in a New-Hampshire village, had one of his legs crushed so as to require amputation. The little fellow was furnished with a "Peg" and stumped round upon it for ten years. We can imagine what he suffered as he grew into adolescence under the cross of this unsightly appendage. He was of comely aspect, tall, well-shaped, with well-marked, regular features. But just at the period when personal graces are most valued, when a good presence is a blank check on the Bank of Fortune, with Nature's signature at the bottom, he found himself made hideous by this fearful-looking counterfeit of a limb. It announced him at the threshold he reached with beating heart by a thump more energetic than the palpitation in his breast. It identified him as far as the eye of jealousy could see his moving figure. The "peg" became intolerable, and he unstrapped it and threw himself on the tender mercies of the crutch.
But the crutch is at best an instrument of torture. It presses upon a great bundle of nerves; it distorts the figure; it stamps a character of its own upon the whole organism; it is even accused of distempering the mind itself.