Editorial note — Chapter VIII · FOOT TROUBLES

[Footnote 35: How much deterioration of the tissues of the foot may be brought about by improper footwear and, above all, by sedentary life and the substitution of the trolley car for the exercise of walking, is well illustrated by the functions that are lost. The child can use its adductor and abductor muscles for the toes quite as well as for the fingers. Those who go barefooted retain those muscular powers. Some time we will be able to influence young folks' minds enough to keep them from sacrificing all the more delicate muscular powers of their feet to the fashion of small or curiously shaped shoes. Armless men learn to use their feet almost as hands, they write, pick up small articles, oven play musical instruments. Some people have special muscular faculties, as, for instance, the power to displace certain tendons and bring them back with a snap which makes a distinct sound. The Fox sisters, to whom we owe the origin of modern spiritism, confessed that this was the way they produced their spirit rapping. Some mediums can, it is said, dislocate the tendon of the flexor longus hallucis onto the edge of its grove and then bring it back with a snap. Others can produce partial toe dislocations which by muscular power are suddenly reduced with a dull noise like the sound of a gloved hand rapping beneath the table.]