A HISTORY OF MEDICAL SCIENTISTS ON HIGH HEELS

For 250 years medical scientists have propagandized about the health h azards of high-heeled shoes, which originated four centuries ago. Phys icians, however, largely unaware of their own profession's tradition, keep reinventing the diagnostic wheel. This professional amnesia has h eld back the momentum of the process of educating the public. Conseque ntly, despite these warnings, millions of women continue to wear high- heeled shoes. This article describes the history of the medical profes sion's recognition of this worldwide health problem and the current un derstanding of the deleterious and often irreversible biomechanical ef fects of high-heeled shoewear. The article emphasizes that the reemerg ence of high heels and of medical interest in them in the third quarte r of the 19th century, following their disappearance in the wake of th e French Revolution, was associated with increasing pressure by employ ers to wear such shoes for long hours at work. Although medical scient ists have recognized this specifically occupational phenomenon for mor e than a century, full-scale epidemiological studies may be necessary to bring about substantial social-behavioral change.