Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1882 — About Corns. [ARTICLE]

About Corns.

Within six blocks of my Boston residence there are eleven corn doctors. Some of them employ a number of operators, and do an immense business. A large majority of adults, among the better classes, suffer from corns or other maladies of the feet. Walking, the best of exercises, would be indefinitely increased if our feet were healthy. Prompted by suffering in my own person, and by sympathy with the sorefooted cripples about me, I have studied the subject with care and interest. Let me give you the result of my observation and thought : The sole is too narrow ! It has long been suspected that a narrow sole was the great trouble in this world. The particular suffering under consideration, I am sure, all, or nearly all, comes from a too norrow sole. My friend Mrs. C., on reading the chapter in Our Girls devoted to “Boots and Shoes,” came to say that, although she was a sufferer from corns, and a general crippled condition of feet, her shoes were, nevertheless, enormous ; twice the size of her feet. She wished I would see if it was not so. I examined her shoes and agreed with her that they were too large. As she stepped, her foot rocked over first on one side and then on that. Now it pressed over on the outside, rubbing down over the edge of the sole, and touching the ground, and perhaps, if the ground were at all uneven, on the very step her boot would rock over on the other side of the sole. Such friction between the little toe and the big toe joints against the upper leather must invariably produce corns. I think the majority of boots are too large. Mrs. C. wished me to accompany her to the shoemaker’s and see what I could do for her relief, for really, life was becoming a torture. We went to her own shoemaker. Curiously enough, his name is Shoemaker. Mrs. C. hobbled to a seat and declared, “I won’t try to walk again, there !” Her shoe was removed and Mr. Shoemaker marked around her foot when she was standing upon it. We measured the mark and found that it was exactly four inches. That was the width of hex foot when she stepped on it without a shoe. Then we measured the sole of the shoe she had been wearing, and found it two and a half inches. Here was the secret of the whole trouble. A pair of shoes were made for her at once, with soles four inches broad. Now she can walk for hours without a pain in her feet. There are millions of poor sufferers in this country, who are limping and hobbling through the world, who might be perfectly relieved and cured by the same means.— Cor. Golden Rule.