and are directed by it, to such an extent that the continuous agency
of the will is essential to the process. If the influence of the will
be suspended, but for a moment, the action ceases, and the man falls
to the ground. Nevertheless, the play of the individual muscles, and
their co-ordination, or the manner in which their several movements
are combined, are, in a great measure, independent of the will.
They are, to a certain extent, automatic, and result from peculiar
relations between the nervous and the muscular systems. The will may
be compared to the driver of an engine, who, by turning on the steam,
and maintaining the supply, sets the machine in motion, and regulates
the rate of its speed; but the several wheels are so arranged that they
go on irrespectively of his immediate superintendence. It would be
impossible for the engine-man to attend to the working of each detail
of his machine; and it would be too much for the will to have to direct
all the movements of the limbs in walking. We should be wearied with
such an effort of attention before we had walked across a room; for the
exercise of the will is exhausting, and soon engenders fatigue. The
more we think of any movement and take pains to direct it, the sooner
we are tired and unable to continue it; and the more the attention is
diverted, the less quickly do we experience a feeling of exhaustion;
while those movements in the body which are not at all under the
influence of the will--the movements of the heart for instance--go on
unceasingly, through a long life, without any sense of weariness. What
so prevents fatigue, when we are walking, as the diverting conversation
of an agreeable companion?
But though the combination of the movements in walking is, to a
certain extent, automatic, it is not complete without the proper
control of the will. This is proved by the gait of those unfortunate
beings in whom the mind, and with it commonly the will, is deficient
from birth--I mean IDIOTS. Their movements are, usually, more or less,
irregular and unharmonious, jerky, without proper steadiness and
rhythm; the head is tossed about; the eye looks one way; the fingers
are sprawled out in another direction; the foot is jerked out at a
hazard, as it were, so that you don’t know when it will reach the
ground, perhaps it kicks against the other foot. A sad spectacle this.
The visit to an Idiot Asylum fills one, it is true, with a sense of the
value of an institution where these poor members of the human family
are kept out of harm’s way, and away from the gibes of the village
boys, and are made clean, and tidy, and taught so far as they are
capable of instruction; but I know no sadder sight than is presented
by a string of the inmates of such an asylum, guided from room to room
by the foremost of the number, who shews by his walk, somewhat more
steady than that of the others, that he is gifted with rather more
intelligence than they, and is so fitted to be their guide.
An equally melancholy, an even more distressing, spectacle is that
of criminals pacing, like animals in their dens, up and down the
court-yard of their prison; for in them we know, that there is no
deficiency of will. It is strong enough to control and regulate
the movements of their limbs; but there is a still more important
deficiency, viz. a deficiency of that moral sense which should control
the will.
Another sad, but physiologically interesting, sight is the rolling
walk of the drunkard. Here, again, the will is not deficient; but it
is, partly, and by its own agency, dethroned. Enough of the will is
left to set the machine going, not enough to guide it and control it
well. Though the movements follow one another, for the most part, in
proper sequence, they are uncertain and ill-directed. The balancing
power is partly lost. The feet are dragged hither and thither, and
thrown about, by the swerving weight of the body; and they follow
one another upon the ground at uncertain intervals, and in any but a
straight line. You watch a man in this state staggering from side to
side, and wonder how he keeps his legs at all. Soon the foot catches
against some slight obstacle or against the other leg, or fails to
come quickly enough into the required place, and the man rolls over.
The supple manner in which his unstrung limbs give under the weight,
perhaps, saves him, to some extent, from the shock; but you must
not imagine that drunkards have any charm against injury. A large
proportion of the accidents admitted into our Hospitals are the result
of drunkenness.
_Distinctive Features of the Human Foot._
I have already made a few comparisons between the human foot and that
of certain of the lower animals. It will be interesting to add some
others.
There are several animals, as the Monkey, the Bear, and some Reptiles,
in which the foot resembles the human foot in many particulars. It has,
for instance, the same number of toes as the human foot, and the same,
or nearly the same, number of bones, and the latter disposed in much
the same manner. Certain peculiarities, however, distinguish the human
foot. These all have reference to the power which man, and man alone,
possesses of standing firmly upright, and of walking steadily, upon the
two feet.
The following are the most important of these distinctive features.
_First._ The several parts are fitted and bound together in a compact
firm manner, so as to combine strength and elasticity in the highest
degree. In this respect the human foot contrasts very remarkably
with the sprawling foot of the Seal or Lizard (figs. 2 and 3,
p. 11). The result is obtained, partly, by the great size of the
tarsal bones, in proportion to the other components of the foot, and,
partly, by the formation of the “Plantar Arch,” which is higher and
stronger in man than in any of the lower animals.
_Secondly._ The TOES are short and small in relation to the other parts
of the foot. In many animals, the Monkey for instance (fig. 44,
p. 89), the toes form the greater part of the foot; and, in some,
the bones of the instep are reduced in number as well as in size: the
reason being that, in such animals, the toes are required to perform a
variety of offices--burrowing in the ground, scratching, holding on to
the branches of trees, catching and tearing prey, &c.--for which their
services are not needed by man.
It may here be noticed that one of the great points of dissimilarity
between the foot and the hand consists in the difference which the
length of the digits bears to the other components in the two members.
They form nearly _half_ the length of the hand, but not more than a
_tenth_ of that of the foot. Clearly, therefore, they constitute a far
less important segment of the lower limb than they do of the upper,
and are intended to perform much less important functions in it. In
the hand the fingers and thumb may be said to constitute the essential
part; whereas the toes do little more than help the foot to adapt
itself to inequalities of the ground and so to obtain a firmer holding.
In civilized countries, accordingly, where we walk, chiefly, upon even
paths and paved streets, very little evil results from the loss of the
services of the toes which is incurred by covering over the foot to
protect it against the hardness of the roads.
We often hear the toes spoken of as ill-treated members, which are
not allowed fair play because the art of man keeps them in a state
of inertness and deprives them of their natural functions. Anatomy,
too, gives some countenance to the idea, inasmuch as it shews that
the muscles which minister to the toes are as numerous as those which
are concerned in moving the fingers; and we occasionally see persons,
who, having been born without hands, or having lost them, contrive to
write and paint and do other unusual offices with their toes. Watch
the movements in an infant’s foot as yet unshod. They are considerably
more free than in your own; especially you will observe that there is
a power of separating the great toe from the others and approximating
it to them which you have, probably, altogether lost. The small size,
however, of the toes, and the comparative fixedness of the inner, or
great toe, prove, that they were never intended for anything like the
same variety of purposes as the fingers, and shew that, under the most
favourable circumstances, the _pes_ could never be _altera manus_, as
some would persuade us that it is. Certainly it was never intended to
be an organ of prehension. Hence, although in practice, boot-makers may
excite our wrath and deserve our condemnation, I don’t think that, in
principle, they are so much to be complained of.
The _third_ striking peculiarity of the human foot is the size of the
inner or GREAT TOE and the firm manner in which its metatarsal bone is
joined to the other bones, so as to render it a main pillar of support
to the foot. These features of the great toe have reference to the
share of the weight of the body which is borne by the inner side of the
foot, more particularly during the last stage of the step, when the
body is propelled forwards over the other foot. Hence it is sometimes
called the “hallux,” from a Greek word (ἅλ-λομαι) signifying to bound
or spring. The _mobility_ of the _thumb_, enabling it to be opposed so
easily to each of the other fingers, is a characteristic of the human
_hand_; and the _solidity_ of the _great toe_ is equally, or even more,
characteristic of the human _foot_. The great toe should be continued,
from the instep, straight along the inner edge of the _foot_, or
inclined a little _in_wards; often, as before mentioned, its phalanges
become inclined _out_wards so as to interfere with the other toes[5].
[5] In ancient times warriors were wont to cut off the _great toes_
as well as the _thumbs_ of their captives to disable them for further
service (Judges i. 6, 7).
Though, in many animals the number of the toes is the same as in man,
this is not the case in all; and we may trace a gradual and progressive
diminution of the number, in the following order.
[Illustration: Figs. 39. Elephant.
40. Hippopotamus.
41. Rhinoceros.
42. Ox.
43. Horse.]
I have said (page 10) that the inner toe is incomplete in all
animals, forasmuch as, in none, does it possess the same complement
of bones as do the other toes. You will not be surprised to find,
therefore, that it is the first to be missing. The ELEPHANT goes upon
_five_ toes; but if you look closely you will perceive that the inner
toe (fig. 39, I.) has not attained even its usual incomplete
number of bones. It is short of one; and the inner wedge-bone, which
looks like a metacarpal bone, is prolonged, downwards, to supply the
place, and to give sufficient length to the toe. The same thing may be
seen in some other animals, and it is interesting as shewing the first
indication of departure from what may be called the standard number of
the phalanges. In the HIPPOPOTAMUS (fig. 40) we have an additional
stage of imperfection in this same toe; for here there is only one
small bone to remind us of the existence of the toe (it is the same in
the Rhinoceros, I.); all the rest have failed to be developed; and the
animal, consequently, goes upon _four_ toes. Next the failure appears
on the _out_er side of the foot, and affects the little toe. Thus, the
RHINOCEROS (fig. 41) goes upon _three_ toes--namely, Nos. II. III.
and IV.--and there is scarcely a trace either of the first toe or of
the fifth. In Ruminating animals, as the OX (fig. 42), the second
toe is wanting, as well as the first and the fifth; so that the foot
rests upon _two_ toes (Nos. III. and IV.); and in the HORSE (fig. 43),
as we have already seen, only _one_ toe--the middle one (No. III.)--is
developed sufficiently to reach the ground.
[Illustration: Fig. 44. Gorilla.]
Whatever pretensions to Humanity the MONKEY may make--and they are
sufficiently striking to render some persons very uncomfortable on
the score of relationship--he is certainly far removed from us in the
construction of the foot (fig. 44); and the good people to whom
I have alluded may derive consolation from the reflection that, in
this respect at least, there is very little indication of cousinship.
Indeed we ought not to speak of his _foot_ at all; for the part which
corresponds with the human foot does not even deserve that name. It is
so much more like a hand, that the term four-handed, or _quadrumanous_,
is by naturalists applied to this class of animals. There is scarcely
any plantar arch; the animal bears, chiefly, upon the outer edge of the
foot; the digits are long and strong; and the inner one, instead of
being parallel with the others, diverges from them so as to constitute
a true _thumb_ instead of a great toe. All these points are very
suitable for enabling the animal to cling to branches of trees, and for
other prehensile purposes; but they unfit him for the upright posture,
and render it impossible for him to walk steadily upon his lower limbs.
[Illustration: Fig. 45. Gorilla.]
In the great ape called the GORILLA, which is found in the
south-western part of Africa, and of which many specimens have now been
sent to this Country, the _hind-hand_ is of great size and strength, as
may be seen in the accompanying drawing made from a stuffed specimen
in the British Museum. The lower part of the leg is also very thick,
owing to the size of the muscles which move the great toe and the other
digits, and which enable them to give a most powerful grasp. So strong
and savage is the creature that all efforts to capture one alive, when
full-grown, have, hitherto, failed. He is said to give evidence of his
strength of hand and of his amiable propensities in the following way.
He swings by his fore-hands from the trees, and, letting himself down
quietly by them, watches an opportunity of seizing by the neck, with
his huge hind-hand, some unwary Negro who may be passing by, draws him
up, and holds him with vice-like grasp, till his struggles have ceased,
and then drops him a strangled corpse to the ground.
Most of the characters above mentioned as distinctive of the human
foot--such as its compactness and strength, the height of the plantar
arch, the shortness of the toes--are, like the size of the calf, most
marked in the higher members of the human family, in those, that is to
say, who are gifted with the highest intelligence. Thus the formation
of the foot is found to have a correspondence with the formation of
the head, and may, like it, be, to a certain extent, taken, as I
have before remarked, to be an index of intellectual, as well as of
physical, capacity. The relation between the intellectual power and
the physical conformation of man, which is here exemplified, and which
is maintained throughout the frame, is a subject of extreme interest,
and is one which has not attracted the attention of anatomists and
ethnologists so much as it deserves.
To what secondary causes this harmonious adaptation of body to mind
may be due, we cannot clearly tell; but we can see in it a provision
for giving physical ascendancy to superior intellect. And it is most
gratifying to be able to derive, as we may do, from this as well as
from the observation of the past and the present, the assurance that
the cultivation of the mind, provided its moral tone be preserved and
proper sanitary precautions be taken, is not likely to be attended with
any deterioration of the body. On the contrary, we have good reason to
believe that the present civilized nations of the earth, with their
higher mental culture, are inferior to none of their predecessors
in the qualities of the body; surely soldiers never maintained a
hand-to-hand struggle better than the victors at Inkermann; and we
know that the civilized nations are physically superior to most of the
uncivilized. We have good ground, therefore, to hope that the extension
of education and commerce will be productive, on the whole, of an
improvement of the physical condition of the species.
Sir James Emerson Tennent says that the Veddahs, or aboriginal
inhabitants of Ceylon, use the foot in drawing the bow. They sit down,
place the toe against it, and draw the string with the hand; and some
of the American Indians appear to have used both feet in the same way.
These Veddahs furnish a good illustration of the low physical condition
which is usually associated with absence of mental culture. They are
described as in a singularly degraded state. “They have scarcely any
language, no knowledge of God, nor of a future state, no temples, no
idols, no altars, prayers, or charms; and, in short, no instinct of
worship, except it be some addiction to ceremonies, analogous to devil
worship, to avert storms, lightning, and sickness. All presented the
same characteristics of wretchedness and dejection--projecting mouths,
prominent teeth, flattened noses, stunted stature, and other evidences
of the physical depravity which is the usual consequence of hunger
and ignorance. The children were unsightly objects, entirely naked,
with misshapen joints, huge heads, and protuberant stomachs. The women
were the most repulsive specimens of humanity I have ever seen in any
country.”
_The Proportions of the Limbs._
A few years ago I took the measurements of numerous skeletons which
I found in the museums in France, Germany, and England, and made the
following table to shew the proportions of the several parts.
The length of the foot and hand is in all somewhat greater than it
should be, in consequence of the bones composing them being usually
less closely articulated in the artificial skeleton than they are in
nature.
From this it appears that the limbs of MAN differ from those of the
APE, chiefly, in the proportionate length of the thigh and arm, and in
the shortness of the foot and hand. And it will be seen that, in both
these particulars, the NEGRO differs from the EUROPEAN and exhibits
some approximation to the APE.
I found, also (the tables shewing this are given in my work on the
Human Skeleton), that these characteristic proportions of the European
are brought out only during growth; for that in the early periods of
infancy the foot and hand are, relatively, very long, and the thigh
is actually shorter than either the leg or the foot, and the arm is
shorter than either the forearm or the
MEASUREMENTS OF SKELETONS (IN INCHES).
+----------+---+------------+------+-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-------------+
| | H | | |C S| H | R | H | F | T | F | Pelvis. |
| | e | Middle |Spine,|i f k| u | a | a | e | i | o +------+------+
| | i | point | |r e o u| m | d | n | m | b | o | | |
| | g | of |length|c r f l| e | i | d | u | i | t |Trans.|Ant.- |
| | h | spine. | of. |u e l| r | u | . | r | a | . | dia- |post. |
| | t | | |m n .| u | s | | . | . | |meter.|dia- |
| | . | | |- c | s | . | | | | | |meter.|
| | | | | e | . | | | | | | | |
+----------+---+------------+------+-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+------+
|European | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|(average |65 | Symphysis | 22.2 | 20.5 |12.7 | 9.2 | 7.3 |17.88|14.4 |10.6 | 5.2 | 4.3 |
| of 25) | | pubis. | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|Negro | |{ 1 inch }| | | | | | | | | | |
|(average |62 |{ below }| 19.3 | 19.8 |12.1 | 9.4 | 7.7 |17 |14.4 |11.11| 4.6 | 4.1 |
| of 25) | |{Symphysis.}| | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|Bosjesman | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|(average |54 | Symphysis. | 17 | 19.6 |10.8 | 8.3 | 6 |15 |12.9 | 7.5 | 4.4 | 3.5 |
| of 3) | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|Idiot | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|(in Berlin|57 | | 19.5 | 13.5 |12 | 8.8 | 7 |16 |12.5 | 8.5 | 5 | 3.8 |
| Museum) | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|Chimpanzee| |{ 3 inches }| | | | | | | | | | |
|(average |50 |{ above }| 17 | |12.2 |11 | 9 |12.4 |10 |10.5 | 4 | 5.5 |
| of 4) | |{Symphysis.}| | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|Orang | |{ 3-1/2 }| | | | | | | | | | |
|(average |44 |{ inches }| 18 | |14 |14 |10 |10.6 | 9.2 |12 | 3.8 | 4.5 |
| of 2) | |{ above }| | | | | | | | | | |
| | |{Symphysis.}| | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|Gorilla | |{ 4 inches }| | | | | | | | | | |
|(average |58 |{ above }| 21 | |16.6 |12.9 | 9 |13.9 |11.3 |12 | 5.7 | 7.3 |
| of 3) | |{Symphysis.}| | | | | | | | | | |
+----------+---+------------+------+-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+------+
hand; and it is only, gradually, during the advance to manhood,
that the proper proportions are attained. So that the transient or
immature condition of the human frame shews certain resemblances to the
permanent Negro type and to that of the quadrumanous animals; and these
resemblances become obliterated during further growth.
The accounts of travellers indicate that some other nations
present great varieties in the proportion which the length of the
foot and hand bears to the height. Bushmen and Hottentots are very
diminutive, commonly under 5 feet in height; and their hands and
feet are remarkably small and delicate, in which respect they differ
from Negroes. Mr Bartram observes with regard to the Cherokees or
Muscogulges--a tribe of North American Indians--that the women are,
perhaps, the smallest race of women yet known, almost all under
5 ft.; and their hands and feet are not larger than those of
Europeans of 9 or 10 years of age. He tells us, also, what is very
strange, that the men of this same tribe are of gigantic stature, “a
full size larger than Europeans,” many of them above, and a few under,
6 ft.; but he says nothing of the size of their hands and feet.
The hands and feet of the Patagonians are said to be very small. This
may be contrary to what we might expect; but it accords with what I
found to be the case in the skeletons of some Giants which I measured;
for in all of them the feet and the hands were disproportionately
short. It would seem, therefore, that, whether the stature of the
individual be diminutive or gigantic, the foot and the hand, in either
case, are, usually, less than their proper relative length. A greater
number of accurate data are, however, necessary to enable us to
generalise correctly upon this and other points of a like nature, or to
decide what truth there is in the common remark, that a long foot in a
child indicates a tall man.
In former times the parts of the human body were used as measures; and
it was not uncommon to illustrate the tables of measures by drawings
of the human body, with descriptions of the foot, palm, &c. One of the
tables of the 16th century, derived in great part from the Romans and
the Greeks, is founded upon the notion, which is not very far from
the truth, that in the well proportioned man, the breadth of the palm
is a 24th part of the whole stature, and the length of the foot a 6th
part, and the length of the cubit--from the elbow to the end of the
fingers--a 4th. The measures, however, varied at different times and in
different countries, even though the names were the same. The latter
have, in several instances, remained, though the definite measure
which they now indicate is different from what it was, and differs
from that of the part of the body from which the name was taken. Thus,
our present foot measure (twelve inches) is considerably more than the
length of the human foot.
_The Skin of the Sole._
The SKIN of the sole is soft and yet very tough and strong. It
underlies a thick pad of fat, which separates it from the bones and the
plantar ligament. The fat is interwoven with fibres passing, through
it, from the tissue of the skin to the bones and ligaments. It is,
in this way, rendered very firm, though it retains much of the soft
quality of fat; and it forms an admirable cushion for receiving the
weight of the body and defending from injurious pressure both the skin
and the other parts of the foot. The fibres just mentioned bind the
skin to the superjacent bones and ligaments, and hold it firmly to
them, so as to prevent its being displaced from them in the movements
of the foot upon the ground.
[Illustration: Fig. 46.]
The accompanying woodcut shows that these connecting fibres are
most numerous where there is the greatest pressure, viz. beneath the
heel and the balls of the toes. It shows, too, that they take the
direction at each of those parts which is most calculated to prevent
displacement. Thus, at the heel their direction is chiefly from the
heel-bone, backwards, to the skin. When we place the heel upon the
ground in walking, the weight of the body has a tendency to drive the
heel-bone _for_wards from the skin; and the direction of the fibres,
from the heel-bone, _back_wards, just resists this tendency and
holds the skin and the bone firmly together. On the contrary, when
we withdraw the foot from the ground the pressure is in the opposite
direction, and has a tendency to drive the metatarsal bones _back_wards
from the skin. The course of the fibres is, consequently, changed.
They, many of them at least, run _for_wards from the bones and prevent
the displacement that would be likely to occur. This direction is also
very marked, and for the same reason, at the end of the great toe. A
bundle of fibres radiates from the projecting process, or tubercle,
which is conspicuous upon the under surface of the bone near its end;
and the greater number of them run _for_wards, through the pulp of the
toe, to the skin, and maintain the connection of the skin with the bone
when the latter is pressed _back_wards in withdrawing the foot from the
ground.