Book Review:
Human Walking, Edited by Jessica Rose and James Gamble
Williams & Wilkens, Baltimore, Maryland (1994)
For the slip and fall expert, this book is an absolute must read. Jessica Rose, PhD is the Director of the Motion Analysis Laboratory, Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. James Gamble MD, PhD, is the Medical Director. This book is a collaboration of the leading researchers in the field of motion analysis thoroughly exploring topics such as human locomotion, kinematics of normal walking, energetics of walking, kinetics of human locomotion, development of gait, gait analysis and other topics which are rarely covered in other books.
This book is no piece of fluff. One needs a fair knowledge of anatomy, physics and mathematics just to get through it. But the effort is well paid by detailed information about how people walk and some of the forces generated during the stride. The chapter on Muscles has an excellent set of diagrams which explain the muscle activity during each of the six phases of the stride. These drawings provide a means by which the slip and fall expert can explain to the jury the walking mechanism and illustrate the relative positions of the feet during the stride. I have found these drawings and others depicting the phases of the stride very helpful in refuting clearly erroneous testimony of opposing experts.
The book is mid-range in cost for technical books. At approximately $60.00, it is an investment that should pay for itself in a single use.