The treatment of flat foot / by Bernard Roth.

  • Roth, Bernard.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The treatment of flat foot / by Bernard Roth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    By BERNAR#:ROtH; RR.C.S. I AM glad to be able to comply with the request of my friend Dr. Gibney, to contribute to a symposium on the treatment of flat-foot, especially as some of my views have materially altered since I wrote the article on this common deformity in Heath's Dictionary of Practical Surgery, upward of two years ago. Flat-foot maybe defined as a falling down or giving way of the normal arch of the foot, which may be so slight as to escape notice, except from the discomfort it causes, or be so severe that the whole tarsus presents as great a con- vexity inward as it ought to present a concavity, with the foot .so everted that the internal malleolus touches the ground, while the outer border of the foot is raised, with the .sole directed outward, as in some cases of infantile paralysis. Sir James Paget .speaks of the constant pain and weariness of the lower limbs associated with flat-foot. The feet are elongated, flat, low, without insteps ; the heels are too little prominent, the plantar arches sunken, the ankles thick; the astralagus, navicular, and inner cuneiform bones are below their right level. The pains complained of are those of the muscles and tendons, which are habitually overworked in the task of keeping the body erect when its proper bearings on its supports are dis- turbed. I consider this description applies to a .severe case not due to infantile paralysis. Pain and much de- formity are not always associated together ; growing boys and girls approaching puberty are frequently brought to mc, complaining of severe pain in the insteps, whose feet