The foot is an engineering miracle combining grace, durability, and sensitivity. The foot is perhaps one of the most neglected parts of the body, generally hidden from sight, and its importance is only fully appreciated when something goes wrong. Healthy feet in good working order give us the joy of movement. Painful unhealthy feet make one feel tired and irritable, and take the pleasure out of life. Foot problems have plagued the human race since time began. Chiropodists or podiatrists, as they are now increasingly known, give 2 reasons for this.

• a.
  

  Feet have not yet completed the evolutionary development necessary when our ancestors characteristically changed from the crouched position in which they helped themselves along with their hands.

  
  
• b.
  

  Our feet were made for walking on uneven surfaces such as grass, sand, and earth, and are now pounding hot pavement.

The foot has 2 basic functions: to adapt to the surfaces on which we walk or run and to absorb the shock of impact of the body’s weight from above and move it forward. Consider the punishment it absorbs in a lifetime, as we move it through three forward phased motions: heel impact, and transitional balance phase as the weight moves forward, and the thrust of the toes as they flex, just as the heel strike occurs on the opposite foot, walking at a comfortable 100 skips a minute pace. Each heel strikes the pavement with the equivalent of 225-pound jolts, 50 times a minute. As we walk an average of 115,000 miles in a lifetime, that means tens of millions of jolts for each foot. But the foot is built to withstand many times the stresses, so long as the health of its complex structures is maintained. The Achilles tendon counteracts much of the shock of the pounding it gets within each step.