Investigation about forefoot pathology in Japan

The author has been living in Japan for three years. From the beginning she got the impression that the feet of Japanese were different from those of Westerners. While attending at Japanese hospitals she never encountered patients with forefoot pathology. Therefore the digital and metatarsal formulas, plus the angle of Schuster, were investigated in Japanese and different values resulted. It is the author opinion that the foot of Japanese is a more developed one, from the philogenetic point of view. Moreover it is important that Japanese traditionally spend most of their time without shoes taking them off indoors.