Milestones in biomechanics

Posted in Uncategorized by admin on the December 25th, 2007

Milestones in biomechanics

Galen of Pergamon [129-199]: Published extensively in medicine, including De Motu Muscularum [On the Movements of Muscles]. He realized that motion requires muscle contractions.
Leonardo da Vinci [1452-1519]: Made the first accurate descriptions of ball-and-socket joints, such as the shoulder and hip, calling the latter the “polo dell’ono” [pole of man]. His drawings depicted mechanical force acting along the line of muscle filaments.
Andreas Vesalius [1514-1564]: Published De Humani Corporis Fabrica [The Fabric of the Human Body]. Based on human cadaver dissections, his work led to a more accurate anatomical description of human musculature that Galen’s and demonstrated that motion results from the contraction of muscles that shorten and thicken.
Galileo Galilei [1564-1642]: Studied medicine and physics, integrated measurement and observation in science and concluded that mathematics is an essential tool of science. His analyses included the biomechanics of jumping and the gait analysis of horses and insects, as well as dimensional analysis of animal of animal bones.
Santorio Santorio [1561-1636]: Used Galileo’s method of measurement and analysis and found that the human body changes weight with time. This observation led to the study of metabolism and, thereby, ushered in the scientific study of medicine.
William Harvey [1578-1657]: Developed an experimental basis for the modern circulation concept of a closed path between arteries and veins. The structural basis, the capillary, was discovered by Malphighi in 1661.
Giovanni Borelli [1637-1679]: A mathematician who studied body dynamics, muscle contraction, animal movement, and motion of the heart and intestines. He published De Motu Animalium [On the Motion of Animals] in 1680.
Jan Swammerdam [1637-1680]: Introduced the nerve-muscle preparation, stimulating muscle contraction by pinching the attached nerve in the frog leg. He also showed that muscles contract with little change in volume, refuting the previous belief that muscles contract when “animal spirits” fill them, causing bulging.
Robert Hooke [1635-1703]: Devised Hooke’s Law, relating the stress and elongation of elastic materials, and used the term cell in biology.
Isaac Newton [1642-1727]: Not known for biomechanics work, but he developed calculus, the classical laws of motion, and the constitutive equation for viscous fluid, all of which are fundamental to biomechanics.
Nicholas Andre [1658-1742]: Coined the tern orthopaedics at the age of eighty and believed that muscular imbalances cause skeletal deformities.
Stephen Hales [1677-1761]: Was likely the first to measure blood pressure, as described in his book Statistical Essays: Containing Haemastaticks, or an Account of some Hydraulicj and Hydrostatical Experiments made on the Blood and Blood-vessels of Animals; etc., in 1733.
Leonard Euler [1707-1783]: Generalized Newton’s laws of motion to continuum representations that are used extensively to describe rigid body motion, and studied pulse waves in arteries.
Thomas Young [1773-1829]: Studies vibrations and voice, wave theory of light and vision, and devised Young’s modulus of elasticity.
Ernst Weber [1795-1878] and Eduard Weber [1806-1871]: Published Die Mechanik der meschlishen Gerwerkzeuge [On the mechanics of the Human Gait Tools] in 1836, pioneering the scientific study of human gait.
Hermann von Helmholtz [1821-1894]: Studies an immense array of topics, including optics, acoustics, thermodynamics, electrodynamics, physiology, and medicine, including ophthalmoscopy, fluid mechanics, nerve conduction speed, and the heat of muscle contraction.
Etienne Marey [1830-1904]: Analyzed the motion of horses, birds, insects, fish, and humans. His inventions included force plates to measure groubd reaction forces and the Chronophotographe a pellicule, or motion picture camera.
Wilhelm Braune and Otto Fischer [research conducted from 1895-1904]: Published Der Gang des Menschen [The Human Gait], containing the mathematical analysis of human gait and introducing methods still in use. They invented “cyclography”, pioneered the use of multiple cameras to reconstruct 3D motion data, and applied Newtonian mechanics to estimate joint forces and limb accelerations.