History

The analysis of living organisms developed parallel with the achievements of physics, biology and techniques. Even in the ancient times, B.C., motions were illustrated. Rock drawings portrayed two dimension motions. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) is considered to be the first to start dealing with kinesiology (kinesiology is the scientific study of human motion) and examined animals’ motions by geometric analysis. Achimede (287-212 B.C.) applied mathematics to describe physical phenomena, founding hydrostatics and static, including a definition and explanation of the human body’s centre of gravity. Galen (c. 131 AD- c. 201 AD) was the originator of the experimental method in medical investigations and tried to understand body functions. He distinguished sensory and motion nerves as well as agnostic and antagonistic muscle groups. Da Vinci (1459-1519) a leading artist and engineer proved by that both human and animal motions can be studied by the laws of mechanics. He was also studying human body’s centre of gravity, functions of muscles and the structure of spine. Galilee (1564-1642) founded two sciences now called kinesiology and strength of materials. He made it possible to describe physical events by mathematics. Borelli (1608-16799) was a medical doctor, a mathematician and an astronomer defined human body’s centre of gravity and studied the functions of muscles and body dynamics. Newton (1642-1727) with his laws of motion and three physical laws laid down the foundation for classical mechanics. His second law was the vector sum of the external forces. Naturally these laws cannot be used directly in biomechanics. Steno (1648-1686) laid the foundation of muscle mechanics. Bernoulli (1667-1748), Euler (1707-1783), and Coulomb (1736-1806) were dealing with the energetic questions of human body and the quantity of optimal human work depending on velocity and power. In 1830 the Weber brothers defined the place of the centre of body mass during walking and carried out mechanical analyses of human motion regarding walking, running and jumping. Due to Daguerre’ (1787-1851) technical achievements he could do analogical analysis. Marey (1830-1904) took photos of walking, running and jumping people and studied people’ motions from bio-mechanic aspects and created a cronophotography which captured movements and motions in several frames of print. He conducted studies dealing with the power between ground and human soles and created special shoe soles with an inbuilt dynamometer. Mybridge (1831-1904) created zoopraxiscope for displaying motion pictures. Lumiére brothers were the first filmmakers and in 1895 they showed the techniques of moving picture offering new opportunities and techniques to study human motions. Braune (1831-1892) and Fisher (1861-1917) studied the kinematics and dynamic motions of human body. Knoll was the first to analyse sports motions from a film in 1925. Amar (1879-1935) developed artificial limbs for disabled soldiers between the two World Wars. As soon as electrical research tools appeared the margin error was decreasing in the analysis of human motions and movements (Csernátony, 2008).