Medicine: Foot Sizes

The National Association of Chiropodists met in New York with a thousand foot-doctors in attendance and adopted a committee report in which New York City is credited with having the smallest and poorest-shaped feet in the country. The average size of women’s shoes worn in New York is 4½; of men’s, 6. High heels for women are usual. Other cities show much better records. In Philadelphia and St. Paul, for instance, the averages are, for women, 5½ to 6; for men, 8 to 9. ” The trouble with New Yorkers is that they are afraid to walk. They take taxi, streetcar, subway for a trip of a few blocks.” The chiropodists pilloried the low-priced automobile as a doubtful blessing, causing many persons to take on weight, lose strength, develop weak feet. The doctors also demonstrated an apparatus for lengthening a shortened foot.