Historical review and current use of the Whitman/Robert's orthoses in biomechanical therapy

Current literature disputes Whitman's belief that muscle action plays the primary role in foot stability. Because of this faulty premise, Whitman included an excessively high medial flange in his orthosis. The high medial flange caused many patients a great deal of discomfort. To avoid this pain, the patients would not wear the brace, and as a result, it had little clinical value. For this reason, podiatrists seldom use the Whitman/Robert's orthosis unless it has been modified. Although Whitman constructed his brace under a false premise, it provided current researchers with a great deal of valuable information. Many aspects of the current foot orthosis were derived from Whitman's original work. The medial heel skive, for example, is very similar in function to the extrinsic varus wedging used by Roberts and the Thomas heel wedge used by Whitman. The Blake inverted orthotic also displays some conceptual similarities to the seldom-used Whitman/Robert's brace. Consequently, although Whitman did not fully appreciate the mechanisms that stabilize the foot, there is no question that his efforts had a profound effect upon the development of modern functional foot orthoses.