# Medieval pointy-toed shoes led to Cambridge bunion surge



## Biskit (Jun 11, 2021)

This struck a chord as I'm currently getting some foot problems sorted...









						Medieval pointy-toed shoes led to Cambridge bunion surge
					

About 27% of 14th and 15th Century skeletons found in Cambridge digs had bunions.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## BigBadBob141 (Jun 12, 2021)

I think in the end the shoes became so ridiculously long and pointed it was almost impossible to climb stairs normaly.
If you think that's bonkers look at the old Chinese practise of foot binding, the so called butterfly feet.
It's truly insane some of the things some people come up with that just get more and more exaggerated!


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## BAYLOR (Jun 12, 2021)

BigBadBob141 said:


> I think in the end the shoes became so ridiculously long and pointed it was almost impossible to climb stairs normaly.
> If you think that's bonkers look at the old Chinese practise of foot binding, the so called butterfly feet.
> It's truly insane some of the things some people come up with that just get more and more exaggerated!



How those neck elongation rings custom ? That one is frightening.


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## HareBrain (Jun 12, 2021)

Human history is best summed up as a constant back-and-forth war between stupid shoe fashions and sensible ones.

When Orwell invited us to imagine the future as "a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever" he neglected to say that half the time that boot would have an elongated squared-off toe-box that made it difficult to drive a car, and pointless buckles.


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## Montero (Jun 12, 2021)

And don't forget - red painted instep to show they are super-posh.

And what is it with shoes today huh? I was in a sensible shoe shop yesterday - as in ones for running, walking, hiking and foot problems - and the thing they found it hardest to accommodate - waterproof. They had water resistant, but said to me that for walking through long wet grass as I do, I needed waterproof and that limited my options. Grrr.


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## Pyan (Jun 12, 2021)

I spent 20 years in front-of house catering, mainly in shiny narrow-toe shoes - my feet have never completely recovered.


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## BigBadBob141 (Jun 12, 2021)

Might have been Lilly feet not Butterfly?
Saw a photo of a woman's foot without the binding in a book about the last empress of China, round about 1900.
The foot looked pretty horrendous, it was folded in two, they would start the binding on very young girls, just have hurt like hell, the adults could barely walk!
This all started hundreds of years ago because one of the emperors of China had a serious kink for women with very small feet.
Sad to say there are other abominable practises carried out on young girls today in North Africa and Arabia.
Personally I hope there is a specially place in hell reserved for the people who practice this abomination!


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## Montero (Jun 12, 2021)

Well, the era of tight corsets deformed women's rib cages and those men who went for the wasp waisted fashions. (Note not all corsets do that, just 18th century onwards had the potential.)


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## Aquilonian (Jun 12, 2021)

"Dr Dittmar said modern research associates the deformity with balance issues.
"This would explain the higher number of healed, broken bones we found in medieval skeletons with this condition," she added."

I'd have thought more likely that wealthier folk who wore fashionable pointy shoes could also afford to ride horses, falling off of which probably caused a large proportion of the broken bones. 

Having actually studied and practised podiatry at one time, I do get frustrated that in 2021 when we have iPhones and Amazon and Chinese robots on Mars, it's still difficult to find practical well-fitting shoes if your feet are even slightly unusually shaped. Most of  the problems that podiatrists deal with are actually caused by shoes, and yet when the TUC (Trades Union Congress) had a campaign against employers who forced female staff to wear uncomfortable and damaging shoes they were ridiculed as fanatic feminist killjoys who did not want women to look attractive.


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## Aquilonian (Jun 12, 2021)

In fact come to think of it human beings probably do even more deliberate and entirely non-rational damage to their feet than they do to their external genitalia. I wonder what extra-terrestrials would make of our world-wide and age-old predilection for such painful and damaging customs?


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## Montero (Jun 13, 2021)

Yes, why are shoes not feet shaped?
With today's 3D printers, there should surely be a market to develop shoe designs that can be customised to your foot shape in the shop and then printed. Or at least the sole and then a second machine to do the uppers. Maybe shops would become a place for looking at designs and having your feet measured and if printing in every shop is too hard, the order goes off to a central printing factory and you pick it up a week later.


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## nixie (Jun 13, 2021)

Montero said:


> Yes, why are shoes not feet shaped?
> With today's 3D printers, there should surely be a market to develop shoe designs that can be customised to your foot shape in the shop and then printed. Or at least the sole and then a second machine to do the uppers. Maybe shops would become a place for looking at designs and having your feet measured and if printing in every shop is too hard, the order goes off to a central printing factory and you pick it up a week later.


Market and patent this idea, my feet are a nightmare having arthritis in both means I rarely find shoes that are comfortable.


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## Dave (Jun 13, 2021)

Aquilonian said:


> it's still difficult to find practical well-fitting shoes if your feet are even slightly unusually shaped.





Montero said:


> Yes, why are shoes not feet shaped?


/\ This! 

I don't think I've ever had any shoes that fitted properly. My feet are in terrible shape because of standing all day in ill-fitting shoes. I have bunions as a result, but they don't hurt at all, so I am lucky in that respect. If I were to get my toes straightened then I'd never ever find "normal" shoes that would fit me again. My most comfortable footwear are my leather walking boots. I also have bad ankles (runs in family) so I wear my walking boots quite a lot.



Aquilonian said:


> the TUC (Trades Union Congress) had a campaign against employers who forced female staff to wear uncomfortable and damaging shoes they were ridiculed as fanatic feminist killjoys who did not want women to look attractive.


High heels are a killer on ankles and hips too, but often the damage is only realised when you get much older.


Montero said:


> Maybe shops would become a place for looking at designs and having your feet measured and if printing in every shop is too hard, the order goes off to a central printing factory and you pick it up a week later.


There is/was at least one company that will/would make bespoke shoes around your foot's shape, but the cost is/was astronomically high. 3-D printing ought to cut that cost somewhat, but it would still be hand-made rather than mass-produced, and so much more expensive. Then again, people would pay the earth to have well-fitting shoes.


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## Astro Pen (Jun 13, 2021)

It was jester phase.


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## Montero (Jun 13, 2021)

Are you channelling @Ursa major ?


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## Montero (Jun 13, 2021)

I was raised on the horror story of my grandma's feet. I was there for trips to the chiropodist where he said that he wished he could show her feet to all the girls wearing high heels. She had hammer toes and bunions so bad that she put lumps in her carpet slippers. And yes, she'd worn really high heels, partially because she was short.


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## Ursa major (Jun 14, 2021)

Montero said:


> Are you channelling @Ursa major ?


Not quite...


...but neither did he put his foot in it....


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## Montero (Jun 14, 2021)

GROAN


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## BAYLOR (Jun 14, 2021)

I am in awe of the number of ways human being subject themselves to wearing attire  that is in some cases,  not only uncomfortable and impractical  but,  potentially dangerous to the wearer.


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## Montero (Jun 14, 2021)

There seems to be an urge to display, to attract attention, whatever the cost - but it is only strong in some people. You go back to the stone age and there is evidence from graves of people spending energy on polishing pretty rocks and hand drilling holes through them to make a necklace. Not in itself harming (well apart from a potential RSI) but they either had more free time and resources than we'd assume, or thought shiny beads to be important - maybe even at the same level of importance as food and shelter.


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## Montero (Jun 14, 2021)

Regarding custom made shoes to feet, they do exist already in a specialist way. I had orthotic insoles made for me some years ago - foot mould sent off to a factory - and they had brochures of the shoes you could have made with said insole built in. But they were of the order of £300 a pair and the orthotics had already cost me about £120 including the appointment. The factory kept the mould from your foot for 6 months then binned it. It all went a bit wrong on the first iteration, as the podiatrist had done the mould by wrapping my feet in plaster cast while I was lying down, and the orthotics were not wide enough as I have feet that spread a moderate bit when standing. There are other ways of doing orthotics as in starting with a foot shaped base plate and sticking on the bits needed during the appointment, and you get to stand on them before you pay for them - but they are probably not as long lasting as the moulded at a factory kind.
But having machines to make made to measure shoes - yup, that is needed.
SF is full of press a button, have a new outfit, or in the case of Miles Vorkosigan, have your specialist tailor who knows how to modify the standard programme to match your odd shaped body. But shoes rarely get a mention unless they are some cool shape.


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## Aquilonian (Jun 14, 2021)

"they either had more free time and resources than we'd assume" 

Getting away from the all-important topic of pointy shoes here, but from all I've read people in the Palaeolithic had loads of free time, even Medieval peasants did pretty well for holidays due to the large number of saints' days, in fact the people with the least amount of free time would have been the early Victorian British working class who were kept at it for up to 16 hours a day in some jobs. They also had the worst diet of any period in history, and were the most physically stunted. Conventional history used to always portray the progression from hunting to farming to industry as a story of constantly improving living conditions but this was actually not true at all. The fascinating question, which I've not seen answered to any satisfaction, is how were our stone age ancestors persuaded to take up farming when it was harder work and provided a worse diet than their previous lifestyle?


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## Aquilonian (Jun 14, 2021)

Using a plaster mould is the old-school method but takes much longer. Modern podiatrists reckon that the stick-on orthotics are just as effective, even though they look much less impressive, the problem being as you say that the foot changes shape depending on what its doing e.g. lying down or standing on it. For this reason, however skilfully the moulded impression is taken, allowance then has to be made for the difference in foot shape when standing and walking, and this allowance consists of adding extra plaster to the cast which is done freehand as it were. The main benefit of the plaster casts is that it looks a lot more impressive to the patient who will therefore be willing to pay more for it, also any pods who trained in recent years will not have been taught how to do the casting, so those who still have that skill can charge more for their rarer talent.


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## sknox (Jun 14, 2021)

I attribute a good deal of clothing discomfort to the industrialization of clothing. Before that, clothing was largely custom made--either made at home or from a tailor. It could still be made badly, of course, but it was not commonly standardized. And neither are human bodies.

I'd take the original article more seriously if they could point to confirmatory evidence from elsewhere. England was hardly at the forefront of fashion. Are we seeing bunions in Italy? In France? Burgundy? They're basing some very broad conclusions on a tiny bit of evidence.


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## Montero (Jun 14, 2021)

Or baggy. Industrialised fitted clothing is the problem. There seems to be an awful lot of cut-price luxury goods from industrialisation - as in mass produced copies of things that people wouldn't have been able to afford when it was hand made.
Regarding baggy, having made English Civil War soldier's clothing, it was not made to mould to the body. In fact most of it was based on squares or rectangles of cloth folded over with no darts or cutting into the cloth. Minimum wastage. Breeches got their shape by pleating into the waistband.
And for posher clothes.tailors' pattern books included diagrams of how to lay out the pattern pieces to maximise the cloth being turned into clothing.
I grew up being bought clothes sized to be grown into. I never did fully grow into my second school blazer.

There are a wonderful series of books by Janet Arnold, where she has measured surviving tailored clothes and provides diagrams of all the pattern pieces. It provides hours of fascination, trying to turn them into a pattern to fit somebody. The first round teaches you the exact shape of the original person wearing the clothes, then you start to work out how to adapt.


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## BigBadBob141 (Jun 16, 2021)

The battle of Gettysburg in 1863 during the American Civil War was fought over a warehouse full of boots.
But the interesting thing is the boots had no left hand and right hand like the shoes and boots of today.
A pair of these boots had each individual boot the same, they gradually wore into a left hand or right hand form after being worn for some time.
Can you imagine how uncomfortable they probably were when one first started to wear them!


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## Montero (Jun 16, 2021)

Speaking as a re-enactor, you pad with thick socks, and you can swap them over between your feet to even out the wear, like swapping the tyres on a car.


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## J-WO (Jun 16, 2021)

Cambridge Bunion Surge are my fave band.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Jun 17, 2021)




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## Danny McG (Jun 20, 2021)

I think, with modern medical technologies, we should be able to get shod like horses - and then it's clippety clop time


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## Abernovo (Jun 21, 2021)

Danny McG said:


> I think, with modern medical technologies, we should be able to get shod like horses - and then it's clippety clop time


You just want an excuse to wear steelies* all the time. That said, I'm now imagining you in Holy Grail garb, as a Monty Python extra.

*Steel toe-capped shoes/boots, just in case someone's not heard the term.


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## Montero (Jun 21, 2021)

And called Patsy.


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## J-WO (Jun 21, 2021)

Danny McG said:


> I think, with modern medical technologies, we should be able to get shod like horses - and then it's clippety clop time


Honestly? I'd really like that. Get shod and then never have to thing about footwear again (or for a good few years at any rate)  I hate shopping for shoes.


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## Montero (Jun 21, 2021)

I hate shopping for shoes, but just imagine how you'd wear out sheets and kick your partner in bed (or be kicked by). Or step on the cat's tail. Or maybe I am picturing too much like an iron shoe.


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## J-WO (Jun 21, 2021)

This set me to thinking; what's the ultimate future human foot protection gonna look like? Imagine a far future where we walk around barefoot but the soles of our feet intelligently harden to the environment around them (Or on command of the foot's owner)? So, if indoors on a soft rug, they're post-bath soft but out on a hike they harden to rubbery leather. Weird, but... kinda handy.


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## Montero (Jun 22, 2021)

Gloves as in built in hand protection would be useful, Vulcan-like eye protection - as in third membrane to close in emergency, skin colour change to protect from UV.
It just occurs to me that KB Spangler has written Stoneskin - where there are a lot of gengineered humans, one race of which lives on a harsh desert type planet with sand that can strip the skin off a normal human but they have massively toughened skin that is partially under their control. Effectively armour plating. It's the first book in a new series - technically it is the prequel to the new series as it is how the main character in the series came to join the "witches" - there is a touch of the Dune Navigator's Guild here - intersystem travel thanks to a talented few being able to talk to "the Deep" (rather than taking spice).


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## Ray Zdybrow (Jun 21, 2022)

Aquilonian said:


> "they either had more free time and resources than we'd assume"
> 
> Getting away from the all-important topic of pointy shoes here, but from all I've read people in the Palaeolithic had loads of free time, even Medieval peasants did pretty well for holidays due to the large number of saints' days, in fact the people with the least amount of free time would have been the early Victorian British working class who were kept at it for up to 16 hours a day in some jobs. They also had the worst diet of any period in history, and were the most physically stunted. Conventional history used to always portray the progression from hunting to farming to industry as a story of constantly improving living conditions but this was actually not true at all. The fascinating question, which I've not seen answered to any satisfaction, is how were our stone age ancestors persuaded to take up farming when it was harder work and provided a worse diet than their previous lifestyle?


Perhaps because they could grow a surplus, and store food in case of times when food was  was in short supply.


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## Montero (Jun 21, 2022)

If you are storing food, you need to either hide or guard the cache. So it may be that caching led to farming - stay near to your cache and produce food more intensively rather than wandering to look for it and leaving cache unguarded.


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## M. Robert Gibson (Jun 23, 2022)

Surely sandals with adjustable straps and socks are the answer?


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## Montero (Jun 23, 2022)

I've never, ever "got" sandals with socks. Sandals in bare feet, fine. Socks in shoes, fine. But it is just an invitation to get your socks dirty, wearing them in open sandals.


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## Fiberglass Cyborg (Jun 24, 2022)

I've had people tell me my shoes might last longer if I bought more expensive shoes. Thanks, but quality men's shoes are all designed for people with feet shaped like palette knives. I basically have scaled-up hobbit feet - I already have to go two or three sizes up just to accomodate the width, without dealing with 1.5 cm of headroom in there too.


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## Montero (Jun 24, 2022)

Lovely turn of phrase there @Fiberglass Cyborg

I have spread out to the toes feet and find if I get the width, the heel is sloppy..... sigh. For a short time I was very happy in a pair of made to measure clogs, with extra depth to allow for a padded insole - and then the podiatrist I started seeing for several problems shot them down as being wrong in so many ways.   (Insufficient cushioning in the sole, skidding around on the internal padding, not a full rocker sole.)
Well, they were better than wellies.
In fact I am getting tempted to revive the clogs now that so many of my foot problems are better..... mmmm, have to think on that. I no longer absolutely have to have a rocker sole....
Currently dealing with a six month old pair of boots that was waterproof and is now leaking.


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## Ursa major (Jun 25, 2022)

Fiberglass Cyborg said:


> I already have to go two or three sizes up just to accomodate the width


Me too... but as the size of the shoe increases, the distance between the back of the shoe and the place where the shoe is at its widest also increases. This means that the shoe one has to buy may (depending on the shape of one's foot) be wider than it needs to be.

This can also mean that, in spite of accommodating one's foot, the shoe is not a good fit (even if one ignores the fact that it is too long).


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## Guttersnipe (Jun 27, 2022)

Elves and genies never seem to have that problem...


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## Montero (Jun 27, 2022)

Guttersnipe said:


> Elves and genies never seem to have that problem...


It's why so many people hate them.


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## Elentarri (Jun 27, 2022)

Ursa major said:


> Me too... but as the size of the shoe increases, the distance between the back of the shoe and the place where the shoe is at its widest also increases. This means that the shoe one has to buy may (depending on the shape of one's foot) be wider than it needs to be.
> 
> This can also mean that, in spite of accommodating one's foot, the shoe is not a good fit (even if one ignores the fact that it is too long).


That's when you get inner soles.  You can slip them into the too big shoes for a tighter fit so they don't slip, but still get the width.  There are full and half inner soles available.  

Most shoes I try on are too short and no matter how many sizes you go up, they still stay too short but just widen out, so you end up with something that looks like a boat on your foot.  I've come to the conclusion that these types of shoes are made in China (says so on the label) and apparently whoever designed them still thinks women don't have/need toes.


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## Elentarri (Jun 27, 2022)

Guttersnipe said:


> Elves and genies never seem to have that problem...


Their feet never touch the ground, so it doesn't matter what the shoes look or fit like.


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## Danny McG (Jun 29, 2022)

My wife has been getting these for a couple of summers now for beach trips, they're basically stick on soles that adhere to your bare feet!


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## Elentarri (Jun 30, 2022)

I thought one of the points to beach trips was to walk on the sand in bare feet?  Unless your beach happens to be the one with gravel like shards of glass?  Then I think you need something a bit more heavy duty anyway?


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## Montero (Jun 30, 2022)

I walk on perfect lawns in bare feet - far superior to sand. We don't own a perfect lawn, we go for wildflowers and chickens. You do not want to tread in chicken poo. Wildflowers can be prickly. However, if there is an unsupervised lawn at a stately home or open garden, I'm off wandering in bare feet really enjoying the texture. There is the springiness, the warm patches in the sun, the cool sometimes dewy patches in the shade, wonderful.


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## Elentarri (Jun 30, 2022)

Montero said:


> I walk on perfect lawns in bare feet - far superior to sand. We don't own a perfect lawn, we go for wildflowers and chickens. You do not want to tread in chicken poo. Wildflowers can be prickly. However, if there is an unsupervised lawn at a stately home or open garden, I'm off wandering in bare feet really enjoying the texture. There is the springiness, the warm patches in the sun, the cool sometimes dewy patches in the shade, wonderful.


I don't think those stick on soles will save you from chicken poop   but I agree with the bare feet in grass sentiment. Wonderful stuff.


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## Montero (Jun 30, 2022)

The height that chickens can manage in one poop, especially if it is a once a day, super-stinky, broody hen special, then the only thing that can save you is boots. Sandals nope. Mind you I once walked into a dog turd in sandals and managed to scoop it into the sandal. I was then walking on park grass barefoot, but not happily. An awful lot of "bleh, bleh" and rubbing and looking for a cleaner patch of grass with some wipeability to it.


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## Danny McG (Aug 19, 2022)

One of the problems we have raising kids is there's no standardisation of shoe sizes.

We have two foot gauges to measure the various kids feet, they're both for buying kids shoes in the UK but very different scales on them.

We found it was a bit pointless taking them to the expensive Clark's shoe shops because the 'expert professional measuring' is actually very inconsistent. 
Now we carefully measure at home and then order online without (so far) any problems


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