The military shoe : First prize in the official military competition in 1874 / by S.A. Salquin ; assisted in the technical part by the brothers Giacomo and Stefano Tirone, of Turin ; wth a preface by Division Colonel Lecomte ; tr. by H.L.B., under direction of the quartermastergeneral, U.S.A.

  • Salquin, S. A.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The military shoe : First prize in the official military competition in 1874 / by S.A. Salquin ; assisted in the technical part by the brothers Giacomo and Stefano Tirone, of Turin ; wth a preface by Division Colonel Lecomte ; tr. by H.L.B., under direction of the quartermastergeneral, U.S.A. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    The present lasts are entirely symmetrical. By j)lacing them side by side, we see that they begin to separate from the point of the projection of the great toe; at their extremity, the thickness of the wood is entirely insnfScient; in short, that shoes made upon these lasts contain no neces- sary space in height for the great toe. The culminating point at the extremity of these lasts is in the middle from which the wood diminishes in thickness on both sides to the rise of the instep. The two posterior sides of the last are cut nearly ver- tical, so that the shoe does not open out enough for the entrance of the foot and the heel, which are therefore constantly compressed. Finally, the bottom surface of the present last makes no account of the sinuosi- ties which are felt in passing the hand lightly over the sole of the foot. These are all faults which have a direct action upon the construction of the shoe, and which have been completely avoided in the formation of the new lasts which have been used in making our model shoes. These lasts have one special advantage which it remains for us to set forth. They have an outline similar to the outline of the inside of the foot, and they are of the same thickness as the foot. The culminating point of the extremity of these lasts is at the inner edge, corresponding to the place occu]3ied by the end of the great toe; from there the wood dimin- ishes in thickness to the point occupied by the little toe. The appear- ance is far from being ungraceful; it is not perceived when the shoe is on, and it is absolutely necessary that it should be thus. It is indeed by this arrangement of the last that the great toe is able to remain in its normal iDOsition. Better still, the great toe, which is already deformed, will be obliged, little by little, to take again its normal position; for the shape of the shoe will prevent it from continuing to take its place in the mid- dle of the shoe. Then there will be no more compression of the small toes by the great toe, and regular play will be secured to all the joints of the foot. Besides this advantage realized by these new lasts, they present an- other not less important. They have a bottom surface reproducing the same sinuosities which are felt on the soles of the feet. By iiassing the hand lightly over them we see that the projection of the great toe is more or less prominent; now the lasts must possess this same i^romi- nence, that the corresponding space may be found in the shoe when finished. This space serves for a lodging for the projection of the great toe, which will be no longer compressed in this cavity which has been arranged for it; it will give sufficient space between the sole and the upper leather, and the foot will not widen out and push the upper leather over on both sides of the shoe, as is seen in the shoe where the inner side of the sole isabsolutely flat, and where this space cannot then exist. The models of buskins and shoes which we present, fulfill all the con- ditions that we have just enumerated, and they are, besides, distin- guished from all other systems known at the present day in that the
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