THE FOOT

By J.D. Ratcliffe

Yossel is somewhat awed by his heart, liver, lungs and other organs. But he tends to regard me as an ungainly, trouble-causing nuisance. I am Yossel’s left foot. I’ve been described as everything from an architectural nightmare to an anatomical wonder. The latter, I think, is closer to fact.
Yossel has no idea what a complex piece of machinery I really am. There he stands, gazing out a window, his mind pretty much a blank. Yet a great deal is going on inside of me. In effect, through the intricate interaction of my 26 bones (one fourth of all Yossel’s bones are in his feet), 107 ligaments and 19 muscles, I am balancing a six-foot, 180-pound pile of flesh and bone. Try balancing anything that size on an area no larger than the soles of two feet! It’s a tricky business. Messages fly back and forth from the brain. Sensor spots in my soles report that pressure is growing in one area- Yossel is tilting slightly. New orders come: tighten this muscle, relax that one. It would take a good-sized computer to handle a balancing act like that.
Walking is even more complex. My heel takes the initial shock load, which is then transmitted along my five metatarsal bones to the ball of Yossel’s foot, just behind the toes. Finally, with the big toe, I give a forward thrust. This keeps me quite busy.
But Yossel pays more attention to the tires of his car than he does to me. He simply cannot understand it. Let him walk down a sidewalk at a comfortable 100-steps-a-minute pace. That means I’m hitting cement with a 180-pound jolt 50 times each minute, and my partner to the right is doing the same. In his lifetime Yossel will walk something like 65,000 miles - which means tens of millions of jolts for me. The wonder is that I don’t collapse completely.
When Yossel’s ancestors were on earth, things were fine for feet. Everyone walked barefoot (later on, they would wrap feet in animal skins) on yielding, uneven terrain – the finest possible exercise for feet. Then came shoes, cement sidewalks and hard floors. I begin to hurt just thinking about them!
When Yossel was a baby his parents, without knowing it, piled punishment on me. They did not realize that my bones were soft and rubbery (I wouldn’t be a finished product until Yossel was about 20 years old). They tucked crib sheets tightly enough to produce mild deformities in me and crammed me into shoes and socks, both short enough to do further damage.
Like all young parents, they were anxious for Yossel to take his first wobbly steps, and tried to help him. I was still a little bag of pretty soft jelly, not yet ready for walking. It would have been better if they had let Yossel decide when he was ready to walk by himself - and left him barefoot until then, or even a month or so afterward.
As a child, Yossel got regular checks of heart, lungs and other organs that are rarely defective in the young. But I, a big trouble causer, was ignored. Many doctors figure, I suppose, that sore feet never killed anyone. By the time Yossel was four, a podiatrist - foot specialist - would have seen immediately that I needed help. By the time Yossel was six real trouble was under way, as in 40 percent of all kids. My partner and I were going flat, and there were the beginnings of toe deformities, caused mainly by heredity and shoes.
Yossel got lessons in tooth brushing, hair grooming and ear washing, but no one thought to give him walking lessons - mainly, to walk with toes straight forward. He walked with toes out. Also, his parents bought him shoes that would last - the worst possible thing. Up to age six, Yossel should have had his feet measured every four to six weeks and new shoes when necessary. By age 12, he should have been getting new shoes four times a year.
There is an old adage that “when feet hurt, one hurts all over.” I can cause symptoms far removed from me: backache, headache, leg cramps and such. Mainly these troubles trace to Yossel’s changing posture and gait to spare one of my sore spots. I might add that these things have an emotional as well as a physical impact. Sore feet, sour disposition.
By all rights, Yossel’s wife’s foot should be telling this story, since women have four times as much foot trouble as men. High-heeled shoes are to blame. They pitch weight forward where it doesn’t belong, shorten calf muscles, throw the spine out of balance. That’s why women have so many back and leg pains. And why they kick off shoes at every opportunity. They’d do better to throw them away.
There are some 50 things that can go wrong with me. The most common: corns. When a shoe produces a pressure spot on one of my toes, I respond by piling up protective tissue. Soon there is a pile of dead cells - high enough to put pressure on a nerve below and cause pain. One corn cure would be for Yossel to go to bed for a week. Usually, the corns would disappear.
Yossel considers himself a quite competent corn surgeon. He isn’t. He trims with a razor blade, un-sterile, and uses acid corn removers - both of which can lead to infection. What he should do is apply a moleskin plaster to ease immediate pain, and then get shoes that fit.
Bunions come when my big toe folds under the second toe. This, in males, is mostly a hereditary deformity, but shoes aggravate it. I respond by building a pad of protective tissue. Usually the problem can be alleviated by a specially designed splint or sling or other mechanical appliance, used in the shoe. If not, surgery to straighten the big toe may be the only answer.
Calluses, usually on the ball of the foot, are sometimes painful pressure spots. Trimming by a foot doctor helps, but wedges, lifts and appliances to produce better balance are the best answer.
Athlete’s foot is caused by fungi. These are always present on me, but they cause no harm until they develop and multiply in a moist skin crack or crevice. The best prevention is to keep me dry – not easy, since sweat glands are more numerous on my sole than in any other part of the body except the palms of the hands. If Yossel would give me a good wash twice a day, an alcohol rubdown and frequent dustings with powder, the problem would be kept under control. If these things fail, there are always the new anti-fungus pills.
Everyone has had ingrown toenails. The best treatment is to clean the corners and put a pellet of medicated cotton under the nail. Still a better prevention – trim the nail straight across, and not too short.
Lately, Yossel has had a few bouts of coldness and numbness in me – due to poor circulation, a part of the aging process. Get the blood moving faster and the trouble goes away. Tepid baths help to dilate blood vessels and improve circulation. Propping me and my partner up on a desk or hassock also helps, as does a walk.
The very best exercise Yossel can give me is walking barefoot, as his ancestors did, over uneven terrain. If he would play golf barefoot, it would be a treat for me. But on hard surfaces I do need shoes for support. And, although Yossel will imprison me in these leather cells for two thirds of his life, he still doesn’t know how to buy a decent pair. In fact, he spends more time selecting a necktie. Occasionally, when I am giving him a hard time, he may buy a pair of “health” shoes. There is no such thing – any more than there are “health” eyeglasses or “health” dentures. Either a shoe fits or it doesn’t.
Yossel should buy shoes in the late afternoon, when I’ve swollen to my largest size of the day. He should insist that the salesman measure both me and my partner; often one foot is slightly larger than the other. And the measuring should be done while Yossel is standing. (By the way, though I stopped growing when Yossel was about 20, I have been elongating and broadening all the years since – Yossel was a size 7 1/2 then, but he’s a size 8 1/2 now.)
Shoes should be at least half an inch longer than the longest toe. If there isn’t room for me to wiggle my toes, Yossel should pass up that pair. And forget about “breaking in” shoes. If a shoe isn’t comfortable when bought, it’s going to cause me – and Yossel – trouble. Another thing: too-short socks are almost as bad toe crampers as shoes. Yossel should particularly watch those stretch ones.
One final thing: I am threatening Yossel here, and he had better pay heed. Ahead lies old age. The great majority of older people have ailing, painful feet from years of misuse. This is one of the main reasons they spend so much time in rocking chairs and on park benches. There they sit, at the very time of life when they are most in need of mild exercise and stimulating activities.
In this sense, I can actually shorten life. If Yossel is to avoid this, he had better start giving me the attention – the serious attention – I deserve.