A few years ago, a friend of mine went through a rather bizarre phenomenon, which to date, has never been accurately explained.
Completely out of the blue, and without suffering any trauma, both of his feet, from the ankles to his toes turned black.
Not tanned or bruised, but dark black.
There was no pain associated with this, but naturally he was pretty concerned.
He got in line at his local hospital emergency room, and promptly became a minor celebrity among the attending physicians.
A diagnosis of the problem never materialized.
After getting the same results at three different hospitals, he took a friends advice and went to see a herbalist? or homeopath? I’m not sure about the correct designation, but this person suggested he soak his feet in plain yogurt daily for a certain number of days.
As weird as this solution sounded, he really didn’t have any other options from the “established” medical community and considering the simplicity, he opted to give it a try.
It worked.
Within a week the problem was solved.
He was obviously pleased, noticed no side-effects and has never had a re-occurance of the problem, but to this day, we both wonder just what the hell that was all about!
Without any other information available, I have to wonder if it wasn’t simply a cosmetic effect from something in/on his socks. Did he wash his socks in something strange? Or did he have a new pair of black socks that he hadn’t washed before he wore them (causing resdual dye to stain his skin)?
Perhaps you’re thinking of silver nitrate? We use it in chemistry and we have to be very careful not to get it on our skin becuase it kills skin cells and leaves the skin blackish. (I don’t know how one would manage to soak their feet in silver nitrate, though. It’s kind of epensive.)
I wouldn’t think that the doctors would have thought black feet were unheard of. Many years ago my father was taking shower and noted that his feet had suddenly turned black. He went to his doctor who immediately ran some blood tests and discovered that in addition to the black feet he was anemic. This led quickly to a cancer diagnosis and none of the doctors who were ultimately involved was a bit astonished at the black feet which resulted from internal bleeding settling there.