Editing Biomechanics (section)

== History ==

=== Antiquity ===

Aristotle, a student of Plato, can be considered the first bio-mechanic because of his work with animal anatomy. [[Aristotle]] wrote the first book on the motion of animals, ''[[Movement of Animals|De Motu Animalium]]'', or [[On the Movement of Animals]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Abernethy |first=Bruce |author2=Vaughan Kippers |author3=Stephanie J. Hanrahan |author4=Marcus G. Pandy |author5=Alison M. McManus |author6=Laurel MacKinnon |title=Biophysical foundations of human movement |publisher=Human Kinetics |location=Champaign, IL|isbn=978-1-4504-3165-1|page=84|edition=3rd|year=2013 }}</ref> He saw animal's bodies as mechanical systems, pursued questions such as the physiological difference between imagining performing an action and actual performance.<ref>{{cite web|last=Martin |first=R. Bruce |title=A genealogy of biomechanics |url=http://www.asbweb.org/html/biomechanics/genealogy/genealogy.htm |work=Presidential Lecture presented at the 23rd Annual Conference of the American Society of Biomechanics University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA |date=23 October 1999 |access-date=2 January 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130808074008/http://www.asbweb.org/html/biomechanics/genealogy/genealogy.htm |archive-date=8 August 2013}}</ref> In another work, ''[[On the Parts of Animals]]'', he provided an accurate description of how the [[ureter]] uses [[peristalsis]] to carry urine from the [[kidney]]s to the [[bladder]].<ref name="Fung" />{{rp|2}}

With the rise of the [[Roman Empire]], technology became more popular than philosophy and the next bio-mechanic arose. [[Galen]] (129 AD-210 AD), physician to [[Marcus Aurelius]], wrote his famous work, On the Function of the Parts (about the human body). This would be the world's standard medical book for the next 1,400 years.<ref name="asbweb.org">{{Cite web|url=http://www.asbweb.org/about-biomechanics/the-original-biomechanists/|title=American Society of Biomechanics » The Original Biomechanists|website=www.asbweb.org|language=en-US|access-date=2017-10-25}}</ref>

=== Renaissance ===

<!--[[Galen]] (129 AD – 210 AD), physician to Marcus Aurelius, wrote his famous work, ''On the Function of the Parts'' (about the human body). This would be the world's standard medical book for the next 1,400 years.--><!--so how is that biomech?-->
The next major biomechanic would not be around until the 1490s, with the studies of human anatomy and biomechanics by [[Leonardo da Vinci]]. He had a great understanding of science and mechanics and studied anatomy in a mechanics context. He analyzed muscle forces and movements and studied joint functions. These studies could be considered studies in the realm of biomechanics. [[Leonardo da Vinci]] studied anatomy in the context of mechanics. He analyzed muscle forces as acting along lines connecting origins and insertions, and studied joint function. Da Vinci is also known for mimicking some animal features in his machines. For example, he studied the flight of birds to find means by which humans could fly; and because horses were the principal source of mechanical power in that time, he studied their muscular systems to design machines that would better benefit from the forces applied by this animal.<ref name="Mason">{{cite book|title=A History of the Sciences |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofscience00maso |url-access=registration |last=Mason|first=Stephen |publisher=Collier Books|year=1962|location=New York, NY|page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofscience00maso/page/550 550]}}</ref>

In 1543, Galen's work, On the Function of the Parts was challenged by [[Andreas Vesalius]] at the age of 29. Vesalius published his own work called, On the Structure of the Human Body. In this work, Vesalius corrected many errors made by Galen, which would not be globally accepted for many centuries. With the death of Copernicus came a new desire to understand and learn about the world around people and how it works. On his deathbed, he published his work, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. This work not only revolutionized science and physics, but also the development of mechanics and later bio-mechanics.<ref name="asbweb.org"/>

[[Galileo Galilei]], the father of mechanics and part time biomechanic was born 21 years after the death of [[Nicolaus Copernicus|Copernicus]]. Over his years of science, Galileo made a lot of biomechanical aspects known. For example, he discovered that &nbsp;"animals' masses increase disproportionately to their size, and their bones must consequently also disproportionately increase in girth, adapting to loadbearing rather than mere size. The bending strength of a tubular structure such as a bone is increased relative to its weight by making it hollow and increasing its diameter. Marine animals can be larger than terrestrial animals because the water's buoyancy relieves their tissues of weight."<ref name="asbweb.org"/>

[[Galileo Galilei]] was interested in the strength of bones and suggested that bones are hollow because this affords maximum strength with minimum weight. He noted that animals' bone masses increased disproportionately to their size. Consequently, bones must also increase disproportionately in girth rather than mere size. This is because the bending strength of a tubular structure (such as a bone) is much more efficient relative to its weight. Mason suggests that this insight was one of the first grasps of the principles of [[Engineering optimization|biological optimization]].<ref name="Mason" />

In the 17th century, [[Descartes]] suggested a philosophic system whereby all living systems, including the human body (but not the soul), are simply machines ruled by the same mechanical laws, an idea that did much to promote and sustain biomechanical study.

=== Industrial era ===
The next major bio-mechanic, [[Giovanni Alfonso Borelli]], embraced Descartes' mechanical philosophy and studied walking, running, jumping, the flight of birds, the swimming of fish, and even the piston action of the heart within a mechanical framework. He could determine the position of the human [[center of gravity]], calculate and measure inspired and expired air volumes, and he showed that inspiration is muscle-driven and expiration is due to tissue elasticity.

Borelli was the first to understand that "the levers of the musculature system magnify motion rather than force, so that muscles must produce much larger forces than those resisting the motion".<ref name="asbweb.org" /> Influenced by the work of Galileo, whom he personally knew, he had an intuitive understanding of static equilibrium in various joints of the human body well before [[Isaac Newton|Newton]] published the laws of motion.<ref name="Humphrey">{{cite journal|author=Humphrey, Jay D.|year=2003|title=Continuum biomechanics of soft biological tissues|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A|volume=459|issue=2029|pages=3–46|bibcode=2003RSPSA.459....3H|doi=10.1098/rspa.2002.1060|s2cid=108637580|editor=The Royal Society}}</ref> His work is often considered the most important in the history of bio-mechanics because he made so many new discoveries that opened the way for the future generations to continue his work and studies.

It was many years after Borelli before the field of bio-mechanics made any major leaps. After that time, more and more scientists took to learning about the human body and its functions. There are not many notable scientists from the 19th or 20th century in bio-mechanics because the field is far too vast now to attribute one thing to one person. However, the field is continuing to grow every year and continues to make advances in discovering more about the human body. Because the field became so popular, many institutions and labs have opened over the last century and people continue doing research. With the Creation of the American Society of Bio-mechanics in 1977, the field continues to grow and make many new discoveries.<ref name="asbweb.org"/>

In the 19th century [[Étienne-Jules Marey]] used [[cinematography]] to scientifically investigate [[Animal locomotion|locomotion]]. He opened the field of modern 'motion analysis' by being the first to correlate ground reaction forces with movement. In Germany, the brothers [[Ernst Heinrich Weber]] and [[Wilhelm Eduard Weber]] hypothesized a great deal about human gait, but it was [[Christian Wilhelm Braune]] who significantly advanced the science using recent advances in engineering mechanics. During the same period, the engineering [[mechanics of materials]] began to flourish in France and Germany under the demands of the [[Industrial Revolution]]. This led to the rebirth of bone biomechanics when the [[railroad engineer]] [[Karl Culmann]] and the anatomist [[Hermann von Meyer]] compared the stress patterns in a human femur with those in a similarly shaped crane. Inspired by this finding [[Julius Wolff (surgeon)|Julius Wolff]] proposed the famous [[Wolff's law]] of [[bone remodeling]].<ref>{{cite web
 |author=R. Bruce Martin 
 |date=23 October 1999 
 |title=A Genealogy of Biomechanics 
 |url=http://www.asbweb.org/html/biomechanics/genealogy/genealogy.htm 
 |publisher=23rd Annual Conference of the American Society of Biomechanics 
 |access-date=13 October 2010 
 |url-status=dead 
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100917074516/http://asbweb.org/html/biomechanics/genealogy/genealogy.htm 
 |archive-date=17 September 2010
}}</ref>