The Emergence of Chiropodists
Time progressed, as did the English language. The term ‘Chiropody’ can be traced back to a practitioner of foot care who published a work in 1785 (Chiro [Greek -khier,hand] podos [foot] or Kheirpodes [Greek] chapped feet), (Dagnal 1983). David Low wrote ‘ Chiropodologia or a Scientific Enquiry into the Causes of Corns, Warts, Bunions and Other Painful or Offensive Cutaneous Excrescences.’ Low published his work after translating a 1781 French text by Nicholas-Laurent La Forest entitled ‘L’Art de Soignre les Pieds’ . Unfortunately it does seem that Low plagiarised the French work.
Shakespeare even quoted foot ailments that surely may have needed the services of a chiropodist. Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Sc.5:
‘Cap welcome, gentlemen!
Ladies that have their toes unplagued with corns,
will have a bout with you.
Ah ha my mistress!
Which of you will now deny to dance?
She that makes daintily,
she I’ll swear hath corns!
Am I come near you now?
And on it goes. Hindley c1884 documents the History of the Cries of London heard in the mid-1600’s, probably composed by the celebrated Orlando Gibbons. Ben Johnson (1563-1637) in his play Bartholomew Fair (1614) also depicts a character at a fair-ground entering the scene with a cry of his advertisement:
”Here’s fine herrings, eight a groat,
Hot cordilines, pies and tarts.
New mackerel I have to sell,
come buy my well fed and oysters ho!
Come buy my whitings fine and new.
Wives, shall I mend your husbands horns?
I’ll grind your knives to please your wives
and very nicely cut your corns.
Maids have you any hair to sell?
Either flaxen, black or brown?
Let none despise the merry, merry cries,
of famous London Town.”
It appears that the services of a chiropodist became necessary to serve the aristocracy and the well-off. The Seventeenth Century saw the advent of ‘Corn-cutters’. Such practitioners became respectable, enough for one, John Hardman, to have his portrait painted by Caulfield in the 1700’s. A sure testament to his fame and fortune. John Hardman became the chiropodist to the then King William of Orange. Respectability beckoned at his doorstep.
Portrait of John Hardman
1734 saw other revelations. Reed’s Weekly Journal announced that ‘Mr March, a famous corn cutter became the nail cutter to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.’ An annual salary of 50 guineas.’ Other practitioners were charging up to 1 guinea for an individual treatment. A guinea in the mid 1700’s was worth £150 in today’s terms (2015).
Corn cutter, or the preferred term corn operator, probably emerged as a professional title in the 1700’s. Certainly by 1750 such practitioners were being documented pictorially. Around 1750 an engraver by the name of Funney created an illustration of a corn cutter at work. The picture shows an early chiropodist complete with wig and spectacles and before him an array of surgical instruments. The mode of dress and the mere fact that such work was worthy of an illustration, suggests very strongly that this corn cutter was highly regarded. Through advertising and word of mouth, particularly in coffee and bathhouses, high society now welcomed a reputable practitioner to relieve them of their painful foot conditions. If it was good enough for the reigning monarch to have such a person in his employ, fashion dictated that everyone with money should follow suit.
The Corn Cutter, made by Bob Funney, published by Jackson, 1735-1765 (engraving)
Yet still the profession was somewhat dogged by the fact that corn cutters could be seen plying their trade on street corners. Over the next fifty years or so the chiropody ‘street traders’ gradually disappeared and were replaced by more respectable practitioners. Now they worked from their own premises and even circulated business cards.
In the 1800 London Kelly’s Directory there was one entry listing a chiropodist. By 1840 there were three and by 1880 forty such people registered themselves as practitioners, many offering other services, most notably tooth-pulling.
Textbooks started to be written and published. Hyman Lion, a chiropodist in Edinburgh wrote a Treatise on Corns in 1802 and in 1845 Lewis Durlacher penned the first complete text describing the treatment and care of foot conditions. Hyman Lion was an enterprising practitioner and aspired to further himself to the pinnacle of his profession. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University and graduated with a distinction, his ultimate ambition being to practise as a doctor specialising in foot conditions – perhaps one of the first attempts by a chiropodist to gain acknowledgement from the medical profession. However, he was prevented by the fact that his first calling had been as a corn-cutter, an occupation not considered worthy of the attention of medical and surgical practitioners of the time.
Chiropody/Podiatry as a Profession.
The first person to formally suggest that chiropodists should be regulated and their title protected was Lewis Durlacher, a London chiropodist in 1854. He was practitioner to George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria. He also attempted to establish ‘a dispensary for diseases incidental to feet … for the gratuitous treatment of the needy’ which, in 1913, would become the London Foot Hospital.
Although he was unsuccessful in organising a regulatory body, he wrote various texts which were far ahead of their time. In particular his ‘Treatise on Corns, Bunions, the Diseases of Nails and the General Management of the Feet’ was considered a definitive work and used by chiropodists throughout England.
Elsewhere, dignitaries in Europe employed their own chiropodists. The King of France had a personal chiropodist, as did Napoleon. Perhaps one of the most enterprising practitioners of the day was Isachar Zacharie, chiropodist to President Abraham Lincoln in the USA.
Zacharie was born in England of Jewish parents and travelled to the USA in the mid 1800’s, starting a practice in New York and later Washington. In order to promote his business he would treat civic dignitaries with no charge in exchange for worthy testimonials. President Lincoln wrote in 1862 ‘Dr Zacharie has operated on my feet with good success and considerable addition to my comfort.’
It appears that Zacharie enjoyed the respect and confidence of the President, so much so that the he was asked to act as an unofficial emissary and travel to the south, in particular New Orleans, to help stabilise Jewish support and encourage Jewish loyalty to the Union. Zacharie carried out this onerous task, whilst at the same time still practising as a chiropodist. Whether it was an unwritten request or a misunderstanding, Zacharie managed to treat 15,000 civil war soldiers, their feet suffering the ravages of ill-fitting footwear. After the war he submitted a bill for $45,000 to the War Department which was not paid. He died in 1897 in England and was buried with other persons of note in Highgate Cemetery, London.
The USA took the global lead in officially recognising chiropody as a profession requiring a collective representation when, in 1895, the Society of Chiropodists was founded in New York. Its first official Journal was published in 1907.
Five years later in the United Kingdom, Ernest George Virgo Runting (1861-1954), a one-time chiropodist to Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary collaborated with Dr Arnold Whittaker of Oxford. Together, they formed the British Chiropodial Society in 1912. Runtling was a prolific author on the subject of chiropody. His works include ‘Battalion Chiropody’ (1918), ‘Chiropody Jottings’ (1932) and ‘Practical Chiropody’ (1937).
In 1913 The Pedic Clinic was established in Bloomsbury, London. Here, premises were opened to treat the feet of the poor, it was even dedicated by the Bishop of Willesden, all treatment provided was free of charge. It was also hoped to provide training for aspiring chiropodists but with the advent of World War One this was delayed until 1919, when evening courses were offered on five nights a week.
In 1924 the clinic was renamed The London Foot Hospital. In 1940, during World War Two, the premises were bombed and the Hospital moved to Paddington. The advent of the National Health Service and further moves allowed the State system for training of chiropodists to be firmly established. In 2003, largely due to a dispute over funding of the hospital it was decided to close the establishment (Dagnal, 1988).
A Treatment Room at the London Foot Hospital circa 1939
The Second World War created a hiatus that affected everyone’s lives in the United Kingdom. For years after the conflict the shadow caused difficulties for any aspiring practitioner of chiropody due to such circumstances as closure of training establishments, shortage of raw materials for the manufacture of consumables and conscription. However, in an undated publication ‘Chiropody as a Career’, whose contents suggest that it was published post-1945 but pre-1948 and the advent of the National Health Service (NHS), Christina Cudworth, highlights some of the necessities required to set up in practice:
Chiropody Chair £22
Foot rest £3
Operators chair £3
Chiropody table £5
Nail drill £11
Floor lamp £4
Infra-red foot bath £10
Sterilized felts,
instruments and jars
etc. £4
So for a total of £62 along with a training fee for two years at £42 to £94 and 2 guineas for the examination, one could set up in practice. Annual earnings would be anticipated at between £200 to £400, (£6,000-£13,000 in 2014) the average treatment fees being 3/6d, 5/6d, 7/6d, (£6-£13 in 2014), with the addition of 33% for a domiciliary visit.
Evolutionary evidence strongly suggests that man walking bipedally,
living longer or squeezing feet into inappropriate footwear, has created
the need for skilled professional intervention. This piece shows that
while chiropody as a profession has only been represented by a
professional body in the USA since 1895 and in the UK 1912, with the
SMAE Institute being established in 1919, chiropodists/podiatrists have
been practising for around 4,500 years. It would therefore seem that
chiropody has a secure future.
REFERENCES
Cruse A. 2006. Roman Medicine. 117. Tempest Publishing, Great Britain.
Cudworth CC. Circa 1945-1947. 12. Vawser & Wiles, London.
Dagnal J C. 1983. A History of Chiropody-Podiatry and Foot Care. British Journal of Chiropody. 48:137-183.
Dagnal J C. 1988. The London Foot Hospital. British Journal of Chiropody. 53: 185-199.
Dart R.A., 1925, “Australopithecus africanus: the man-ape of South Africa,” Nature,
115: 195-199.
Kidd R. 1999. Evolution of the Rear Foot. A Model of Adaptation with Evidence from the Fossil Record. Journal of Medical Podiatry. 89: 2-17.
Leakey M D & Hay R L. 1979. Paleocene Footprints in the Leotolil Bed at Leatoli, Northern Tanzania. Nature. 278: 317-323.
Lewis O J. 1980. The Joints of the Evolving Foot. Journal of Anatomy. 130: 833-837.
Morton D J. 1935. The Human Foot. Its Evolution and Functional Disorder. Columbia University Press, New York.
PICTURE REFERENCES
http://zinjanthropus.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/the-feet-of-ardipithecus-ramidus/
http://robertsaunders.org.uk/wordpress/2009/02/27/15-million-year-old-hominin-footprints/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trephine
Oberhelman, S M. 2014. Anatomical Votive Reliefs as Evidence for Specialization at Healing Sanctuaries in the Ancient Mediterranean World. Athens Journal of Health March 2014. Vol 1:1 p47 http://www.atiner.gr/journals/health/Cover-2014-01health
http://www.art.co.uk/products/p28104359728-sa-i8571242/the-corn-cutter-made-by-bob-funney-1735-1765.htm
Cudworth CC. Circa 1945-1947. 32-33. Vawser & Wiles, London.
