Ohhh yeah, "we can't do anything for broken toes except tape them together" was medical Common Wisdom for a long time, for some reason. When I badly badly sprained my ankle in junior high, all they did was give me (OVERSIZED) crutches and tell me to stay off it (while still going to school where I changed classrooms every hour). And that bad sprain probably led to the ankle being super prone to sprains, &c &c.