Thank goodness we were not born at the time of Lord Byron! The great poet was born with a misshapen right foot, which most scholars now attribute to a common foot deformity known as clubfoot. This physical defect greatly affected Lord Byron who walked with a limp and sought to hide his deformity in specially made boots. Mary Shelley wrote of Lord Byron: ?No action in Lord Byron's life ? scarce a line he has written ? but was influenced by his personal defect.? And on his deathbed the artist Joseph-Denis Odevaere painted the great poet with a sheet conveniently concealing the right foot and its deformity.

Some accounts have it that Byron attempted to correct his clubfoot in 1799 (Byron would have been eleven or twelve years old) with painful treatments administered by a quack doctor. As an adult Byron gave up attempting to treat the deformity and instead took pains to conceal it. Nowadays we know that clubfoot is a treatable condition, and most children who are born with the deformity and who have access to medical care can correct the defect by the time they are beginning to walk.

Clubfoot, or talipes equinovarus (TEV), is a common birth defect.

It is twice as likely to occur in males as in females, and approximately 50 percent of the cases of clubfoot are bilateral (both feet are affected). There does seem to be some sort of genetic factor, although scientists have yet to pinpoint an exact cause. The condition is sometimes associated with a genetic disorder known as Edwards Syndrome, which results in a child being born with three copies of chromosome 18. Studies have suggested that as many as twenty-five percent of the children affected by clubfoot also have a relative who has the deformity, and if one identical twin has clubfoot, the other twin is much more likely to have the condition than if his or her twin were healthy.

That said, scientists think that clubfoot is most likely multifactorial. There may be a number of causes for clubfoot ? both genetic and non-genetic ? that interact in order to produce the deformity.

Infants with clubfoot are treated in the first months of their life. Doctors use multiple castings in order to reshape the foot. (Note: people with clubfoot are not missing anything anatomically speaking; the pieces of the foot are just out of proper alignment). Adults who have been successfully treated for clubfoot, unlike Lord Byron, will have almost no remaining symptoms. Sometimes the treated foot ends up smaller than the normal foot, and two different sized shoes are needed. Other people treated for clubfoot use orthotics (special padding and protection for the foot) or orthopedic shoes to provide their foot with extra support.