an Italian physiologist and physicist who was the first to explain muscular movement and other body functions according to the laws of statics and dynamics. In De motu animalium (1679), he was the first to understand that the levers of the musculoskeletal system magnify motion rather than force, so that muscles must produce much larger forces than those resisting the motion. He also discovered the forces required for joint equilibrium and that the position of the center of gravity for the human body was due to elasticity.