Starrett C J
California College of Podiatric Medicine, San Francisco.
Clin Podiatr Med Surg. 1994 Apr;11(2):231-9.
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.
当前的文献对惠特曼认为肌肉动作在足部稳定性中起主要作用的观点提出了质疑。由于这一错误前提，惠特曼在他的矫形器中设置了过高的内侧边缘。这个高内侧边缘给许多患者带来了极大的不适。为了避免这种疼痛，患者不愿佩戴支具，结果，它几乎没有临床价值。因此，足病医生很少使用惠特曼/罗伯特矫形器，除非它经过了改良。尽管惠特曼是在错误的前提下制作他的支具的，但它为当前的研究人员提供了大量有价值的信息。当前足部矫形器的许多方面都源自惠特曼的原始作品。例如，内侧足跟削薄在功能上与罗伯茨使用的外在内翻楔和惠特曼使用的托马斯足跟楔非常相似。布莱克反向矫形器在概念上也与很少使用的惠特曼/罗伯特支具有一些相似之处。因此，尽管惠特曼没有完全理解稳定足部的机制，但毫无疑问，他的努力对现代功能性足部矫形器的发展产生了深远影响。
