History of horse whims, teamboats, treadwheels, and treadmiIls

Abstract

The horse-whim was first used to turn rotary mills in Greece in 300 B.C. Roman engineers developed capstan machinery to propel boats with paddle wheels about 370 A.D. About 1680, Rupert, a cousin of King Charles II, built the first horseboat using a horse-whim mechanism to tow ships in the Royal Navy. People in America called the vessels “teamboats,” because of their close relationship to steamboats. By 1819, 8-12 horse-boats operated between Manhattan and points across the Hudson and East Rivers. Although teamboats were cheaper than steamboats, they had disadvantages: the circular walkways took up a lot of deck space and the horses had to walk in circles. In 1819, the treadwheel-propelled horseboat was invented which placed the turntable below the deck; horses stood on top of the turntable through slots in the deck and drove the wheel backward by walking in place. This eased the burden on the horses, freed up deck space, and allowed the ferry to be built on one hull. In the 1830s, horse-powered treadmills were developed and used with attachments on the farm; they also revolutionized the design of horse ferries. In 1889, Zuntz and Lehmann reported on the chemistry of respiration in the horse during exercise using a revolving platform. Brody, in the 1930s, used a treadmill to study energy metabolism of the horse and in the early 1960s Persson was the first to use a high-speed treadmill to study the physiology of exercise in the horse.