The Human Gait

The different chapters of the present book were published separately each as a complete entity in the Proceedings of the Royal Saxon Society for Sciences. Chapter 1 appeared in 1895 under the names of Wilhelm Braune and Otto Fischer although Braune died immediately after the initial experiments, before the recordings had been interpreted. Chapters 2-6 were signed by Fischer only and appeared in 1899, 1900, 1901, 1903 and 1904. Basic data needed for this investigation of the human gait had been provided previously. A research on the centre of gravity ofthe human body and its different segments by both authors was published in 1889, determination of the moments of inertia of the human body and its segments in 1892. So far only the fIrst of these two works has been published in English. The other has been translated and awaits publication. Springer-Verlag must be congratulated for the quality of this edition and for the care they took in reproducing the original fIgures. This was certainly no easy task. We thank them for the patience they displayed towards the translators. Publication of the present book was made possible fInancially by Prof. M. Muller, Bern. We are grateful to him for his generosity and so will be the scientifIc community.

1 Experiments on Man, Loaded and Unloaded.- Description of the Experimental Method.- Deduction of the Tridimensional Rectangular Co-ordinates from the Serial Pictures.- Finding the Tridimensional Co-ordinates of the Joint Centres.- Trajectories of the Joint Centres, Vertex, Centres of Gravity of the Feet and Tips of the Feet.- Rotations and Deformations of the Trunk.- Rotations of the Hip Line.- Rotations of the Shoulder Line.- Rotations of the Trunk Line.- Rotations of the Head.- Gait of the Loaded Man.- Conclusions.- 2 The Movement of the Total Centre of Gravity and the External Forces.- Methods of Determining the Trajectory of the Centre of Gravity.- Trajectory of the Total Centre of Gravity of the Human Body.- Velocities and Accelerations of the Total Centre of Gravity.- On the External Forces.- Conclusions.- 3 Considerations on the Further Goals of the Research and Overall View of the Movements of the Lower Extremities.- Considerations on the Further Process and Final Goals of the Investigation.- General Behaviour of the Legs.- Critical Analysis of the Leg Movements According to Weber and Weber.- Positional Angles of the Segments of the Lower Extremities.- The Angles of the Knee and Ankle Joints.- Summary.- 4 On the Movement of the Foot and the Forces Acting on It.- On the Forces Acting on the Foot and Their Torques.- The Resultant Force Couples of the Muscles, of Gravity and of the Effective Forces.- The Movement Equations for the Feet.- Overall View of the Activity of the Muscles of the Foot During Walking.- Velocities and Accelerations of the Centre of Gravity of the Foot.- Effective Forces and Momenta of Both Feet.- Summary.- 5 Kinematics of the Swing of the Leg.- On the Typical Walker’s Step.- On the Forces Involved During the Swinging Period and How They Act on the Segments of the Leg.- Angular Velocities and Angular Accelerations of the Rotation of the Three Segments of the Leg During the Swinging Period.- Velocities and Accelerations of the Centres of Gravity of the Three Segments of the Leg During the Swinging Period.- Summary.- 6 On the Influence of Gravity and the Muscles on the Swinging Movement of the Leg.- The Components of the Effective Forces.- On the Effect of Movement on Joint Compression.- The Torques Exerted by Gravity.- The Torques Exerted by the Effective Forces.- The Torques Exerted by the Internal Forces.- On the Activity of the Muscles During the Swinging of the Leg.- Summary.- Name and Subject Index.