The local authorities kept careful statistics of the treadwheels, which provided extensive information on human work, of a nature far more accurate than earlier studies.
Those sentenced to hard labour found themselves pounding the treadwheel and even for those with lighter sentences the daily diet was restricted to limited rations of bread, meat, potatoes, soup and oatmeal gruel.
They used masses of wooden scaffolding, and pulleys operated by treadwheels and cranked round by labourers or animals.
Walking over obstacles, uphill and downhill walking either in free walking animals or simulated on a treadwheel augmented with positive or negative friction has been investigated in some detail.