As a young chiropodist in the 1930's, Dr. Wikler began questioning why Americans of all ages had such weak, deformed, and unhealthy feet, and eventually realized that shoes were causing almost all of the foot ills that he treated. After watching his mother suffer a premature death due to brain cancer, and noting that her physicians were unable to identify the cause, Dr. Wikler began studying the medical literature and history of the late 1800's and early 1900's in search of an answer. Traveling throughout the world, and seeing an absence of cancer where there was an absence of shoes, Dr. Wikler ultimately realized that the sudden and widespread availability of modern shoes during the Industrial Revolution of the 1850's could be responsible for the sudden and widespread increase in degenerative diseases, among them heart disease, cancers, arthritis, obesity and weight problems, allergies, asthma, sexual disturbances, psychological and psychiatric neuroses, addictions, even behavioral phenomena and many other conditions.
In a newspaper article from 1988, just a few years before he passed away around the age of 80, Dr. Wikler recalled 40 years of attempts in reaching the doctors and surgeons involved with detecting and treating breast cancer. He believed that breast cancer results from faulty body mechanics, and that the postural condition is preventable through adoption of sensible footwear habits, particularly during the formative childhood years. For example, the Bay Area of California exhibits one of the world's highest incidence rates of breast cancer, yet just on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Japan exhibits one of the lowest rates of the major developed nations, a notable discrepancy that seems related to the common Japanese habit of removing modern shoes when in the home or at some workplaces and restaurants, replacing them with slippers, socks, or bare feet. Nonetheless, Dr. Wikler's attempts to reach the medical community with his novel ideas were generally disregarded or ignored entirely, especially during the last decade of his life.
2. Hoffman, Phil. "Conclusions drawn from a comparative study of the feet of barefooted and shoe-wearing peoples", October 1905, Volume 3, Number 2, The American Journal of Orthopedic Surgery. This survey was published about half a century after shoes started becoming widely available with the invention of the sewing machine. Actually, it is fortunate that such a study was performed before shoes soon spoil all natural feet on our planet.
3. Rossi, William A. "Shoes and the Shoe Industry—Reality versus Illusion", April 1978, Volume 68, Number 4, Journal of the American Podiatry Association. Podiatrist Dr. William Rossi produced an amazing and prolific lifetime of publications on shoes and feet. This article is but one of the thousands that he wrote, and it provides a broad overview of a number of topics related to footwear.
4. Rossi, William A. "The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe", 1976, reprinted 1993 by Krieger Publishing Company, ISBN 0894645730. Dr. Rossi eloquently describes the foot as an erotic organ and the shoe its sexual covering, thus leading to the various characterizations of men and women's footwear. He devotes several chapters to the subject of sexy footwear, which everyone admires and some fall in love with—literally.
Dr. Rossi concludes, "Though the foot has been with us for several millions of years, much about its true nature has yet to be fully discovered or appreciated. Certainly it is one of the more 'mystical' members of the human anatomy. It is alive with sensuous and erotic potential. We have only to consider its evolutionary history—the fact that it made the upright posture and striding gait possible; that it gave rise to a host of new erogenous features: legs, thighs, hips, buttocks, frontal abdomen and bosom, gait—all of which, erotogenically, were non-existent before the foot assumed human form. The foot, in short, has played no small role in what we call 'human sexuality.' Surely, this foot could not itself be expected to remain non-sexual or non-erogenous."
5. Rossi, William A. "Your Feet and Their Care", 1955, Emerson Books Inc. Dr. Rossi states in the book's preface that "the amount of time, money and suffering wasted by the American public on foot troubles is stupendous" because, he points out, "most of it is so unnecessary and could be eliminated by understanding what causes most foot ills, and what can be done to correct or prevent them." Could the same be true for degenerative diseases?
6. Rossi, William A. "Why shoes make normal gait impossible", March 1999, Podiatry Management. Dr. Rossi provides an excellent overview of what specifically makes shoes so deforming to our feet and bodies, and he explains why the search for the perfect shoe is futile. You may view this important article and others by Dr. Rossi at
http://www.nwfootankle.com/FtHealth/rossi.html or a text-only version is available at
http://web.archive.org/web/20021003192955/http://www.unshod.org/pfbc/pfrossi2.htm on the Internet.
7. Rossi, William A. "The Foot: Mother of Humanity", published April/May 2003 in Podiatry Management. The human foot, Dr. Rossi points out in his final publication, "occupies the lowest rung of the human anatomy. It is ridiculed, taunted and cursed. It is forced to live constantly in dark, cramped quarters, gasping for air, covered by soil and bacteria, stifled by heat, punished by constant pressure and friction, blanketed by sweat, choked by offensive odors. A social outcast, it is kept hidden in a dank, dark cellar. Yet it is this same humble, socially ostracized foot that is the mother of all humanity."
8. Wikler, Simon J. "Walk Don't Run", 1980, Windward Publishing, ISBN 0893170305. In his third and last book, Dr. Wikler emphasized the benefits of walking over the severe and fatal dangers in long-distance running on imbalanced feet, which has become an extremely popular activity in only the last few decades, apparently contributing to the diseased state of America with its consequent asthma, joint and muscle pain, even sudden heart failure.
Regarding shoes and disease, Dr. Wikler opines, "The United States government has spent billions of dollars on research and statistics for 'plausible' causes of chronic disease with no appreciable result. Obviously the answers will ultimately come from an unexpected source."
9. Wikler, Simon J. "Take Off Your Shoes and Walk", 1961, Devin-Adair Company. In his second book about the importance of foot health, Dr. Wikler advocated that children go barefoot to develop strength and agility in the muscles of their feet, and to allow their postures to develop naturally. Paradoxically, Dr. Wikler appears in shoes on the dust jacket to this book, yet what is it they say? Physician, heal thyself? :-) You may be able to read some parts of his book at
http://web.archive.org/web/20010124080600/http://www.unshod.org/pfbc/toysawfl.htm on the Internet.
10. The National Library of Medicine's PubMed database on the Internet at
http://pubmed.gov contains medical journal information back to the 1960's or earlier. Journal articles may be viewed at many university libraries around the country.
11. Huff, Darrell. "How to Lie with Statistics", Originally published 1954, reissued in 1993 by W.W. Norton and Company, ISBN 0393310728. Yet another great book from the 1950's that remains in print and relevant today. An entertaining read, the classic book teaches how to sort through the unending stream of studies, polls, and advertisements all trying to get your opinion, your vote, or your money. The author writes, "In our time it is easy to show a positive correlation between any pair of things like these: number of students in college, number of inmates in mental institutions, consumption of cigarettes, incidence of heart disease, use of X-ray machines, production of false teeth, salaries of California school teachers, profits of Nevada gambling halls. To call some one of these the cause of some other is manifestly silly. But it is done every day."
12. A world map of the prevalence of multiple sclerosis may be viewed at
http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/ms_world.html on the Internet, but you may also find statistics on multiple sclerosis by searching the PubMed database referenced earlier. There appears to be an important threshold age of about 15 years associated with multiple sclerosis (MS). A person who grows up in the tropics during the first 15 years of their life retains the lower MS risk after moving to northern latitude. Yet a person who grows up in the north, and moves to a southern country after the age of 15, still has a higher risk of developing MS. The MS threshold demonstrates that the footwear habits during the formative years are extremely significant, and they seem to be the fundamental determinant of health during the adult years.
13. The American Lung Association's 2003 website on tobacco control at
http://web.archive.org/web/20030717010734/http://lungusa.org/tobacco/ placed strong emphasis on quitting smoking, but they did not provide any instructions about footwear habits. Just as there is no safe cigarette, there seems to be no safe shoe.
14. McCue, Jack D. and Lewis M. Cohen. "Freud's Physician-Assisted Death", July 26, 1999, Archives of Internal Medicine, volume 159, number 14, pages 1521-1525. Sigmund Freud was born in 1856, among the very first in the era of the modern manufactured shoe, and he became hopelessly addicted to cigars, completely unable to give up his addiction. Later in life Freud experienced over a decade of sometimes-botched surgical attempts to eradicate his oral cancer, while still unable to quit his addiction. When Freud no longer desired life, reaching well past the age of 80, his doctor finally complied with Freud's wishes and killed the founder of psychoanalysis by administering a fatal injection of morphine.
15. The Centers for Disease Control report on tobacco smoking at http://web.archive.org/web/20030810004235/http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/who/whofirst.htm on the Internet compares statistics of lung cancer to cigarette consumption amongst various regions and countries around the world, but like the American Lung Association, they say nothing about the stronger correlation with shoes.
16. Robbins, Steven E. and Gerard J. Gouw. "Athletic footwear: unsafe due to perceptual illusions", February 1991, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, volume 23, number 2, pages 217-224. Robbins and Gouw study the effect of increased cushioning in modern sneakers, and they write that, "when injurious plantar loads elicit negligible perceived plantar discomfort, a perceptual illusion is created whereby perceived impact is lower than actual impact, which results in inadequate impact-moderating behavior and consequent injury." The authors conclude that such sneakers may reasonably be classified as "safety hazards" rather than "protective devices."
17. Fitzgerald, William H. "Zone Therapy", originally published in 1917 by I.W. Long, reprinted in 2003, Kessinger Publishing Company, ISBN 0766132919. An ear, nose and throat specialist, Dr. Fitzgerald found that pressure applied to an external body part, such as the fingertips, could have an anesthetizing effect on a corresponding internal region, so that drugs could be avoided during a surgery, for example. Eventually, he mapped locations on the feet, hands, and ears that affected the function of various organs or relieved pain when a steady pressure was applied, thus leading to modern reflexology.
18. Ingham, Eunice D. "Stories the Feet Have Told Through Reflexology", originally published in 1938, reprinted in 1984 by Dwight C. Byers, Ingham Publications, ISBN 0961180439. A student of Dr. Fitzgerald's methods, Ingham determined that the reflex locations in the feet map an exact mirror image of the body—a truly remarkable discovery—so that the toes relate to the head, the ball of the foot to the chest, the arch to the abdominal region, and the heel to the pelvic contents. Even a left-right distinction exists where the heart is reflected in the left foot, the liver in the right foot, ascending colon in the right, descending in left, and other such correspondences that together demonstrate an exact replication in the feet of the upper body's anatomical structure and layout. Ingham found that certain pressure or stimulation to these various reflexes in the feet resolved internal diseases or pain in the related parts of the upper body. Nonetheless, despite its unique success in solely treating a large variety of ailments, reflexology continues to be a vastly undervalued area of medicine. Indeed, it seems reasonable that we will be unveiling some unrealized powers of the mind and physical abilities of the body only through a better understanding of the feet.
19. Rossi, William A. "The Furies Inside a Shoe", March 1996, Podiatry Management. Dr. Rossi describes the shoe as a weight box, hot box, sweat box, germ box, smell box, squeeze box, and a complete chemical factory that does not allow air to reach the poor foot inside. The heat, humidity, bacteria, pressure, weight, chemicals and stale air all combine to produce a truly nasty environment for the foot and shoe both. Now, why would anyone want such a gross, dirty shoe inside of their homes, stores, restaurants, schools and hospitals?
20. Bruneni, Joseph L. "Looking Back: An Illustrated History of the American Ophthalmic Industry", 1994, Optical Laboratories Association. Despite their original beginnings in making and selling whips and canes, the McAllister family quickly became well known by the early 1800's for their optical abilities in manufacturing eyeglasses, even supplying spectacles from their prominent Philadelphia location to such shoe-wearing notables as Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and later Andrew Jackson. John McAllister Junior's grandson, Francis McAllister, began his career as an optician in 1868, only 17 years after the invention of our modern sewing machine, making him a first-hand witness to the exploding demand for eyeglasses and optometric services. You may read his 1917 recollection of almost half a century in the business, in addition to excerpts from Bruneni's book at http://web.archive.org/web/20030830181230/http://bruneni.com/SCCOWeb/McAllisterFrancis.html and http://web.archive.org/web/20030830181410/http://bruneni.com/SCCOWeb/McAllister.html on the Internet.
21. Snyder, Charles. "The Rev. Mr. Goodrich and His Visual Problem", April 1965, Archives of Ophthalmology, volume 73. Not very much is known of the Reverend Mr. C.E. Goodrich, who lived from 1800 to 1870, but he evidently had good analytical skills that allowed him to discover an important optical correction and examination for astigmatism that is usable even today.
22. Hirsch, Monroe J. and Ralph E. Wick. "The Optometric Profession", 1968, Chilton Book Company. Like others on the subject, this book describes the history of optometry, but does not really question why opticianry, optometry, and ophthalmology suddenly became in demand in the late 1800's. Everyone just went with it, and even today more than a century later, there are few people who question why so many humans have such poor vision.
23. Donders, F.C. "On the Anomalies of Accommodation and Refraction of the Eye", 1864, The New Sydenham Society. Pages 539 to 543 provide the entire history of astigmatism in mankind prior to the 1860's.
24. Rossi, William A. "A Brief History of Footwear", June 1990, Current Podiatric Medicine. We tend to think of platform shoes as being from the 1970's, but they have actually been around for thousands of years, going back to the Greeks who used them on the stages of dramas and plays to convey the status or importance of each actor. Footwear fashions, like articles of clothing, tend to come in cycles, and what is popular today will go out of fashion in several years. Most people do not realize that of all the billions of new shoes produced, there are only about eight basic designs in existence, including the moccasin, the sandal, the pump, the clog, the monk, the mule, the boot and the "newest" of the basic styles, the lace-up Oxford, added almost four hundred years ago.
25. Rossi, William A. "Profitable Footwear Retailing", 1988, Fairchild Publications, ISBN 0870056301. Dr. Rossi is unquestionably the authority on such topics, as the podiatrist grew up with his parent's shoe store during the 1920's. Retail shoe stores are everywhere now in our modern society, and the business aspects are relevant because they readily influence the shoe selection process. For example, in order to be economically successful as a business, shoe stores cannot possibly carry all sizes or widths, for every style and color, in multiple units. But everyone loves instant satisfaction when they shop, and so a customer will frequently opt for a size that is too small or narrow, thus increasing the odds of debilitating fit and consequently greater health problems for the foot and body.
26. Rossi, William A. "Children's Footwear: Launching Site for Adult Foot Ills", October 2002, Podiatry Management. Dr. Rossi dispels several myths regarding shoes for children, concluding that it is clearly time to advocate shoeless-ness and barefooted for kids. Millions of shoeless kids around the world grow up with healthy feet, yet most kids in America exhibit severe foot defects by an extremely young age, purely because the parents enforce shoes and socks. It seems that the children instinctively know better. You may view this important article and others by Dr. Rossi at
http://www.nwfootankle.com/FtHealth/rossi.html on the Internet.
27. Rossi, William A. "How fast does a child's foot grow?", April 1979, Volume 69, Number 4, Journal of the American Podiatry Association. The growth of a child's foot is not really predictable in any practical manner. It may experience a rapid period of growth, followed by a period of very little, making it difficult or impossible to judge when the shoe should be discarded, and greatly increasing the odds of a severe deformity.
28. One present-day source for wide-toed, soft-soled moccasins is Medieval Moccasins, on the Internet at
http://www.medievalmoccasins.com and by mail at 10638 Renfair Drive, Plantersville, Texas, 77363, U.S.A. and by phone at 1-877-MED-MOCS (1-877-633-6627) or 1-800-944-3021. Their unique design of the toe facilitates periodic adjustment as the feet spread and lengthen. Note that since modern moccasins are made with a rubber bottom, a traditional soft-soled version must be specifically requested.
29. Thomas, Leah C. and Joel E. Goldthwait. "Body Mechanics and Health", 1922, Houghton Mifflin Company. During the recent disease-ridden decades so heavily fixated with "fitness" exertions, we seem to have forgotten or never known the healthy values of proper rest. The authors believe that, "Rest may well be called 'natural therapeutics.' Physiological as well as mechanical rest is important enough to demand serious attention. Nature's powers are great to repair sources which have suffered exhaustion, to renovate bodily strength and to restore mental vigor. Rest and growth are so closely associated that they appear on superficial view to stand in relation to each other as cause and effect. The child who sleeps much thrives best. The wakeful, restless child seldom displays the evidence of active nutrition. In infancy development is in its highest state of activity, and it is at this time that the healthy child passes the greater portion of its life in a state of rest and sleep. Rest and sleep are component parts of growth. Repair is but a repetition of growth. Children show signs of loss of rest much more quickly than older people, which suggests a greater demand for rest in childhood than in adults."
"All organs as well as the brain require the alternate condition of activity and rest to keep them vigorous and in health. If the necessary amount of rest is not acquired, structural changes and deterioration of function are sure to follow. In reference to the etiology of the disease of individual organs, it may be asserted that a large proportion of their diseases originate in circumstances which deprive the organ of rest which is necessary for the performance of its healthy function."
Their words about exercise done with poor mechanical use of the body are all the more true today. The authors state, "The following theory breaks away from the old technique of exercise and traditional ideas, such as supposing that all exercise is good, beneficial, and healthful. It is not. The most fundamental and at present a most unappreciated fact is the value of the proper mechanical working of the body. Until a person understands good body mechanics and has gained the correct muscular coordination, chiefly of the abdomen, chest and back, exercise is of little benefit and often is harmful. If a person is taught how to correct his own bad posture and aims to make a good posture habitual, he has gained more than the benefits from many strenuous exercises taken with the body poorly poised. Little will be gained from a half-hour of strenuous exercise with the body held in the best possible position if the remaining twelve or fourteen hours of the day are spent with the body badly poised."
They conclude, "Physical education should be founded on the principles of body mechanics if the highest degrees of health and efficiency are to be attained. In order to make this possible there must be a change in the present program or day's order of the typical gymnastic lesson. At first it may seem radical, but not too radical, it is hoped, to suggest that the lesson is quite complete if divided into two parts:
1. Formal exercises. Aiming especially to develop trunk muscles.
2. Game. Allowing recreation, freedom of motion, and relaxation.
The value of educational gymnastics, dancing, athletics, and sports of all kinds is fully appreciated, but such exercise should not be carried on at the expense, or in many cases to the total neglect of more fundamental development. This fundamental development is now understood to mean the acquiring of good habits of correct body mechanics."
30. Goldthwait, Joel E., Lloyd T. Brown, Loring T. Swaim, John G. Kuhns, and William J. Kerr. "Essentials of Body Mechanics". Published in five editions between 1934 and 1952 by J.B. Lippincott Company. The authors provide many compelling illustrations and photographs with explanations detailing how body mechanics and posture influence internal disease. They make the following analogy: "With an automobile the proper running of the engine depends upon the right mixture. Too rich a mixture, the engine stalls; too thin a mixture, it stalls. Is it not possible that much of that which concerns chronic medicine has to do with the imperfect functioning of sagged or misplaced organs? Is it not possible that such sagging results in imperfect general secretions, or mixtures which at first are purely functional but which, long continued, may produce actual pathology? It seems to us that in a better understanding of the special structure and the special physiology of the individual, and in a broader knowledge of the changing physiology that should be part of the varying mechanics of the body, the solution of the problem of chronic disease is largely to be found."
Born in 1866 and graduating from Harvard Medical School by 1890, Dr. Goldthwait practiced medicine and orthopedics well before fancy technology such as x-rays were even invented and made popular. Before the age of 30, he established the first hospital clinic in America for the care of disabled adults, shortly thereafter started America's first orthopedics clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital, while later holding many distinguished posts in major hospitals around Boston, as well as faculty positions associated with Smith College and Harvard Medical School. A founder of the American College of Surgeons, Dr. Goldthwait himself lived well past the age of 90, and he was responsible for much innovation, discovery, and creativity in the field of medicine.
In successfully treating a wide diversity of internal diseases during the first half of the 1900's, Dr. Goldthwait initially placed his most acute patients in a supine position (lying on the back facing upward with knees bent) that extended the body, allowing it to relax so that organs and muscles could function better. In most cases he emphasized a variety of exercises without equipment to encourage good posture, especially targeting the abdominal muscles, but in some particularly weak cases he applied external mechanical bracing to help artificially support the body. Dr. Goldthwait believed that developing proper neuromuscular control is paramount because, once established, muscles get stronger automatically through regular, ordinary use.
31. Rossi, William A. "The High Incidence of Mismated Feet in the Population", 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2, Foot and Ankle. Dr. Rossi concludes that, "Virtually all persons have mismated feet. Rarely if ever are the two feet of a pair exactly the same in size, shape and proportions. Virtually all feet stretch or expand on weightbearing. Yet, here again the two feet do not stretch or expand in the same degree or proportions in their various sections. These two conditions indicate that 1) the popular concept of 'perfect' shoe fit is very likely impossible to achieve and unrealistic to expect because 'mated' shoes cannot be matched to 'mismated' feet; and 2) even the most efficient and precise shoe fit under the circumstances is at best a compromise, and hence a mild degree of shoe 'breaking in' is to be expected as the norm. In the matter of shoe fit we are dealing with four basic variables or phases: the foot at rest, the foot bearing weight on standing, the foot under dynamic conditions, and the foot under thermal influences. To achieve the mission of 'proper shoe fit' in the light of these provocative variables requires much more skill, knowledge, and experienced judgment than has heretofore been realized or appreciated."
32. Moore, A.D. "Invention, Discovery, and Creativity", 1969, Doubleday, Science Study Series S60, ISBN 0999188801. Do you think that most of the important things have already been discovered by the many outstanding minds working over the centuries? Are you convinced that to make really interesting discoveries today one would need vast sums of money, modern laboratories equipped with all kinds of complicated, expensive machinery, and a large staff of highly-trained assistants? Professor Moore believes, "An all-important guideline in creative work is to keep thinking simple rather than complex. Likewise for physical things: Keep them simple, not complicated."
In his classic book intended for teenagers and adults alike, Professor Moore discusses the entire creative process and how anyone, regardless of background in a subject, can make significant contributions using a little ingenuity. He discusses the shortcomings of our modern educational system, and how it actually inhibits memory, learning, observing, visualizing, and creativeness, especially during the formative years. For example, in his chapter promoting the tactile sensory stimulation between the hands and brain, Professor Moore writes, "A vast amount of learning comes by way of the hands, and a vast amount of doing is done by the hands. I would therefore raise this question: Somewhere along the line in the creative process should we deliberately get the hands into the act?"
Indeed, Shoebusters.com proves that it is not only true of the hands, but that it is especially true of the feet. :-)