A man in a t-shirt but no trousers, walking. Collotype after Eadweard Muybridge, 1887.

  • Muybridge, Eadweard, 1830-1904.
Date:
1887
Reference:
2010662i
Part of:
Animal locomotion: an electro-photographic investigation of consecutive phases of animal movements
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view A man in a t-shirt but no trousers, walking. Collotype after Eadweard Muybridge, 1887.

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Credit

A man in a t-shirt but no trousers, walking. Collotype after Eadweard Muybridge, 1887. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

About this work

Description

"The gait in locomotor ataxia. This gait was studied in Plates 546, 549, 550, 554, and 560. All of the cases photographed were typical of locomotor ataxia. The patient upon whom the trajectories were studied is the one of Plate 560. His history is briefly as follows: H. R., aged thirty-four, a clerk by occupation, first noticed that his general health was failing in the fall of 1883. He was at first treated for general neurasthenia, but soon developed sciatic pains and gastric crises. These last were very severe. He then disappeared from observation for two years. When he again returned he was markedly ataxic, both in the arms and legs. He had parasthesia of the soles of the feet, contracted pupils, loss of the patellar reflex, retardation of sensation, etc. …"--Dercum, loc. cit.

Publication/Creation

[Philadelphia] : [University of Pennsylvania], 1887 ([Philadelphia] : [The Photo-gravure Company], 1887)

Physical description

1 print : collotype ; image 14 x 44 cm.

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Lettering

Animal locomotion. ... Copyright, 1887, by Eadweard Muybridge. All rights reserved. Bears plate number: 560

Notes

One of 781 collotypes which form Eadweard Muybridge's magnum opus, Animal locomotion, 1887. This work originated in an attempt to settle the argument which arose in 1871 between Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific Railroad, and Robert Bonner, owner of the New York Ledger, as to whether a trotting horse ever had all four feet off the ground at once. Both men were prepared to enter the controversy fully and to contribute ideas and practical means to prove his side of the argument. Muybridge's solution was to photograph each stage in the trot of a horse called Occident owned by Stanford. Some of Muybridge's photographs did appear to show Occident with all four of his feet lifted at the same time clear of the ground. The research and photography for Animal Locomotion was carried out for the University of Pennsylvania in 1884-1885, using and improving the techniques developed in the 1870s. Of the 781 plates, 95 were devoted to the horse and 124 to other animals. The other 562 are devoted to men, women, and children, nude, semi-nude, and draped, walking, running, dancing, getting up and lying down, wrestling, boxing, leaping, etc. For further information see G. Hendricks, Eadweard Muybrige, London 1975, and R.B. Haas, Muybridge: man in motion, Berkeley 1976

References note

E. Muybridge, Animal locomotion: an electro-photographic investigation of consecutive phases of animal movements. Prospectus and catalogue of plates, Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1887, p. xxiii, no. 560 ("Locomotor ataxia ; walking")
F.X. Dercum, 'A study of some normal and abnormal movements photographed by Muybridge', in Animal locomotion. The Muybridge work at the University of Pennsylvania. The method and the result, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. for the University of Pennsylvania, 1888, pp. 104-133 (on this plate pp. 110-114)

Reference

Wellcome Collection 2010662i

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