Celebrities With Morton’ s Toe
Why the Venus de Milo Has Extra-Long Second Toes
It’s a condition called “Greek foot” or “Morton’s toe”—and 15-20 percent of us have it.
by Melissa Banigan May 23, 2017
With her fleshy buttocks and small, rounded breasts, Venus—de Milo, de Medici, and Botticelli’s version—epitomizes the idealized female form found in Classical, Hellenistic, and Neoclassical Art as well as art made during the Renaissance. For 2,000 years she has been a ubiquitous figure in the canon of Western art, yet despite art historians poring over nearly every inch of her curves, a few small parts of her body have been sorely neglected: her second toes, which stick out like sore thumbs past her shorter big toes.
If it seems ridiculous to contemplate a couple of oddly aligned long toes, it’s worth wondering why so many artists in ancient Greece sculpted them to have uneven proportions in the first place. The magnificent bronze sculpture of the Boxer at Rest and the marble Diana of Versailles, which is a Roman copy of the Greek original, each has them, as does the Barberini Faun, a masterpiece most often recognized for the satyr’s seductive pose and brazenly exposed genitalia than for his long second toes.
At the beginning of the 20th century, an American orthopedic surgeon named Dudley Morton named the phenomenon of having a longer second toe “Morton’s Toe.” Morton believed that this toe, which he also called Metatarsus atavicus, was an atavism similar to color blindness, human tails, and supernumerary nipples, and that it recalled a trait our pre-human ancestors once expressed so that they could more easily swing from trees.
While swinging from trees might sound delightful, Morton’s Toe can cause a slew of uncomfortable orthopedic problems such as bunions and hammertoes. Some medical professionals such as John F. Kennedy’s personal physician, Dr. Janet Travell, have posited that the odd long toes could also cause Myofascial (chronic) pain due to body weight being shifted to the ball of the foot rather than directly behind the sturdy big toe.
Between 15 to 20 percent of humans have Morton’s Toe. Although the name of the toe refers to the second toe of the foot, it would be more accurate to call the condition Morton’s foot, as the problem is caused by the first metatarsal bone in the foot, not the toe, being shorter than its neighbor.
Today the toe—and the foot it belongs to—is often called a “Greek foot” by art historians and podiatrists. No matter what it’s called, people who share the atavism can head to many museums around the world to find ancient doppelgängers with the same feet. While it set the standard for idealized feet in many periods of Western art, hopefully podiatrists recommended corrective shoes or pads to provide some relief for the models.
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