Biomechanics

Historical highlights
The Italian Renaissance (1450-1527)
The revival of ancient Greek Philosophy, Literature, Art and freedom of thought and
ethics. Nevertheless a scientific community didn’t exist.
The authority of the church was replaced by the authority of the
ancients
Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) and Machiavelli
emerged as the Renaissance men.
The parallelogram of forces, simple and compound forces, studied friction, and questioned
Aristotle’s relationships between force, weight, and velocity.
“… an object offers as much resistance to the air as the air does to the object”
Da Vinci’s mechanical analysis of human movement included joints, muscles, bones, ligaments,
tendons and cartilage. He discarded the Aristotelian theory of Pneuma. “Spiritual force” replaced
it.
Historical highlights
The Italian Renaissance (1450-1527)
- Scientific work was revived
- The foundations of modern anatomy and physiology were laid
- Movement and muscle action were studied as connected
entities.
Historical highlights
The Italian Renaissance (1450-1527)
Vasselius (1514-1564) – Was authorised to make dissections of
cadavers of executed criminals and noticed that Galen’s anatomy
mixed human and animal characteristics.
De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem was published in 1543,
in the same year as Copernico’s Revolutionibus Orbium
Coelestium.
Vesalius demonstrated that muscle shortens and become thicker
during contraction.
He consider muscle to be compose of the substance of the
ligament and tendon, being divided into a great number of fibres
Fallopius (1523-1562) – Was mainly devoted to fibrous tissues:
“… motion requires a fibrous nature sin the actual body that is
moved.”. He adopted the Galen’s theory that the Spiritus
Animalis was the cause of muscular contraction, and carrier of
the motor/spiritual function of the brain.
Historical highlights
The Scientific Revolution of the XVII th century
Kings, Counts, wealthy families, Universities, and the Vatican supported men of science -
Galileu Galilei (1564-1642), Kepler (1571-1630), Descartes (1596-1650), Newton (1642-1727)
Intellectual freedom, as well as new ideas and finings were highly respected
Experimentation becomes the cornerstone
Galileu Galilei (1564-1642) – Showed that the rate of a fall is not a function of the falling object’s
weight (Aristotelian approach).
He was about to publish De Animaliam Motibus (The movement of animals), previously than
Borelli’s De Motu Animalum (1680-81) by 40 years!
He studied the biomechanics of human jump, the gait oh horses and insects, and human
floatability conditions (Discourses on Two New Sciences, 1638).
Scaling foundations were introduced (the three times sized animal femur).