The Human Foot, a collaboration between an orthopedic surgeon and a paleoanthropologist, starts by tracing the evolutionary history of feet all the way from their beginnings as fins to modern human feet. It presents the foot, a neglected but important region, taking into account advances in the study of evolution, imaging, physiology and biomechanics.

The development of gait in children is described and measurements of foot pressures and their value are discussed. Also analyzed are various examples of the foot in action such as running, ballet dancing, tightrope walking, kicking, firewalking, swimming and the foot in microgravity, ending with a chapter on the loss of parts and the whole of the foot, the consequences and prosthetic replacement.

The text is an invaluable resource for orthopedic surgeons, physiotherapists, sports scientists, and podiatrists.

Auteur

Bernard Wood

Bernard Wood is at present Professor of Human Origins at George Washington University and Adjunct Senior Scientist at the National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, USA. In 1982 he was appointed to the S.A. Courtauld Chair of Anatomy in the University of London, and in 1985 he moved to the Derby Chair of Anatomy, in the University of Liverpool. He holds the degrees of MD, PhD and DSc from the University of London.

Leslie Klenerman

Leslie Klenerman is Emeritus Professor of Orthopaedic and Accident Surgery, of the University of Liverpool. Prior to moving there in 1987, from 1970 he was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and honorary research fellow at Northwick Park Hospital and the MRC Clinical Research Centre, Harrow Middlesex. With a grant from the Woolfson Foundation he started a laboratory for pedobarography there. In 1990 he was awarded the James Berrie Prize by the Royal College of Surgeons of England for his work on the foot. He has been President of both the European and British Foot Surgery Societies. Since he retired he has been an associate editor of the British Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery and an associate foreign editor of Foot and Ankle International, the official journal of the American Foot and Ankle Surgery Society.

Book Publications include: The Foot and Its Disorders published by Blackwell, 3e, 1990; The Evolution of Orthopaedic Surgery published by the Royal Society of Medicine Press, 2001; with H.P.J. Walsh he edited Physical Signs in Orthopaedics published by BMJ Publishing Group, 1994; The Tourniquet Manual- Principles and Practice published by Springer 2003.

Résumé
The appendages at the end of our forelimbs tend to attract the evolutionary and clinical limelight, but our feet are as important as our hands for our survival and success as a species. We tend to take them for granted, yet the many millions of modern humans who run either competitively or for recreation, or who play sports such as soccer, tennis, and badminton, or who ride, or dance, or swim, or climb, or who stand and walk as part of their work, all depend on their feet. We submit them to unreasonable loads, and expect them to survive our pounding them on hard pavements. We also add insult to injury by squeezing them into fashionable but uncomfortable footwear which does not conform to the shape of the foot. All this means that many professionals make their living caring for our feet. Worldwide many hundreds of thousands of professional people spend most of their working life looking after the foot. They include orthopaedic surgeons, rheumatologists, diabetologists, orthotists and prosthetists, physical therapists, and podiatrists of whom there are at least 15,000 in the United States of America alone. In the English language there are two classic books about the foot, both by anatomists. In 1935 the American anatomist Dudley Morton wrote the first e- tion of The Human Foot, and in Great Britain Frederick Wood Jones' seminal book, Structure and Function as Seen in the Foot, was published in 1944.

Contenu
Early Evolution of the Foot.- Recent Evolution of the Human Foot.- How the Foot Works.- The Development of Gait.- The Measurement of Footprints (Pedobarography).- The Foot in Action.- Amputations and Prostheses.