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.

Translated by: Paul Maquet, Ronald Furlong