Title: Foot brace

Identifier: Country Doctor Museum   (https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/14348)

Description: The earliest version of this brace was referred to as “Doyle’s Rectangle,” which was first invented in 1884. Foot braces of this type are used to treat club foot, a medical condition in which a person’s foot is turned down and under. Although this type of corrective foot brace has evolved over the years, the basic design has remained the same – two shoes joined at the bottom by a bar, made of metal or plastic, with each shoe being adjustable in a rotating motion. A child would wear these shoes at night and would have the corrective shoes adjusted in small increments until her club foot was corrected. It was important for these shoes to not have toes so that parents would not have to buy new shoes for their children as their feet grew. This corrective foot brace was used in the 1970s by Jennifer Smith of Bailey, North Carolina.