"The Centers for Disease Control report on tobacco smoking compares statistics of lung cancer to cigarette consumption amongst various regions and countries around the world, but like the American Lung Association, they say nothing about the stronger correlation with shoes."
So writes James P. Semmel of Albuquerque, New Mexico in his lengthy essay about shoes as the cause of much disease. Having read our report about the Flensmark Hypothesis that heeled shoes may have provoked the pandemic of schizophrenia, Mr. Semmel sent us a note, in which he says:
I am a 34-year-old electrical engineer who has taken a sabbatical to investigate the biomechanical effects of shoes on human degenerative diseases. My research reveals unifying statistical, historical, and physical evidence of such a connection, but more importantly, it has produced a potential treatment. … Chiropodist Dr. Simon J. Wikler pioneered efforts to understand the influences of shoes in the 1950’s, yet his work was neglected during the subsequent drug-and-diet-based approaches to medicine.
[NOTE: The March/April 2005 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research contains a research article that explores one implication of the Flensmark Hypothesis — the relationship between schizophrenia and stiletto heels.]