Swim belt

The swimming belt is a swimming aid that consists of buoyancy bodies that are strapped around the body by means of a belt.

history

la Chapelles swimsuit

Swimming belt 1879 (right)

There are reports from the time of the Greeks and Romans about the use of cork as a buoyancy aid . The Roman-German King Maximilian I (1459-1519) is said to have escaped the siege with a swimming belt from Bruges, where he was trapped in the castle, in 1488. Magnus Ebeneius (1547–1619) reported in 1604 about a swimming belt.

In 1617 Franz Kessler (1580–1650) brought so-called air pants onto the market as swimming aids, which, according to Krünitz , were provided with straps and buckles to connect them firmly to the body. According to Krünitz, "two bags of dog leather" , which were sealed with turpentine and wax and could be inflated through small wooden tubes, were attached to this belt . In 1630 Petrus Wormius spread a similar invention in the Netherlands.

Around 1691 a so-called water shield made of wood was offered, in which letters and small objects that were not allowed to get wet could be transported while swimming. Councilor Hennings from Jena suggested using sheet metal as the material for such a construction. In the 18th century, Johann Friedrich Bachstrom (1686–1742) and Jean-Baptiste de La Chapelle (1710–1792) again resorted to cork as a material . A certain Daubeste in Lyon designed a swimming belt especially for the rescue of castaways . As early as 1805 there was a discussion about whether the swimming belt should be made mandatory by law.

Quotes

• Θεοῦ θέλοντος κἂν ἐπὶ ῥεπὸς πλέοις (with God's help you can swim on a rush mat) is a Greek phrase that probably indicates that Greek children made use of branches or the like as a kind of swimming belt to stay on the surface of the water .
• With his sermons 1, 4, 120 Horace coined the expression “sine cortice nare” (swimming without cork) in the sense of “needing no help” .
• By Christian Morgenstern , the sentence comes "philosophers are swimming belts, joined from the cork of the language."

literature

• Johann Friedrich Bachstrom : The art of swimming, or invention, by means of which one can always save oneself from a shipwreck, and if need be, bring entire armies across the broadest rivers , Berlin 1742 ( digitized version ).
• Wilhelm Gottfried Ploucquet : Description of a secure, comfortable and elegant swimming belt. Heerbrandt, Tübingen 1805 ( digitized version ).

Web links

• History of the cork

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gabriel Christoph Benjamin Busch : Swimming belt. In: Handbook of Inventions. JG Ernst Wittekindt, 1821. Volume 11, p. 342.
2. ^ Krünitz 'swim belt article
3. ↑ JA Donndorff, History of the inventions in all parts of the sciences and arts from the oldest to the present time , 4th volume, Quedlinburg and Leipzig 1817, p. 93
4. ↑ Manuela Ellmers: Horumersiel: History of sea rescue remains alive. In: welt.de . September 28, 2009. Retrieved October 7, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Wilhelm Gottfried Ploucquet: Description of a secure, comfortable and elegant swimming belt. 1805, p. 12.
6. ^ Concise dictionary of the Greek language
7. ^ Ernst Lautenbach, Latin-German. Quotations Lexicon. References , Lit Verlag 2002, ISBN 978-3825856526 , p. 908
8. ↑ http://date-060528.tripod.com/zitate/autor/Christian_Morgenstern.html