by Bill Norman
People accustomed to the sophisticated wheelchairs of modern times might be surprised to learn that wheeled conveyances for human occupants have been around for more than 3,000 years.
Historical accounts describe Chinese chariots, circa 1300 B.C., that used spoked wheels. Scenes inscribed on a vase from ancient Greece (500 B.C.-plus) depict a gur-ney-like device, carrying a child, that traveled on wheels. About a millennium later, etchings on a Chinese sarcophagus plainly show a sitting person being transported in a wheeled chair.
European monarchs (Spain’s Philip II in the late 1500s and Louis XIV of France around 1700) both used wheelchairs, Louis after a medical
procedure. His chair was called a roulette. Philip’s version, more a luxury than necessity, included a footrest and recliner option.
Between these two kingly models,
a 22-year-
old paraple-
gic watch-
maker from
Nuremberg
named Stephen
Farfler built
his own hand-
cranked chair
in 1655.
Resembling a
cross between a
soap box racer and child’s tri-
cycle, it utilized a cog mecha-
nism to engage the single front
drive wheel.
Schematic of an
1869 wheelchair patent application contrasts designs
with a Redman state-of-the-art Power Chair, that offers the user a full range of elevation.
In the subsequent two centuries, wheelchairs (initially referred to as “invalid chairs”) assumed much of the form we recognize today. A notable improvement arrived in 1881 when circular push rims were added to the outsides of chairs’ main wheels. Prior to then, users pushing on the main wheels wound up with handfuls of whatever the chair happened to be traveling through.
About 1900 came another significant advance: Wire-spoke wheels replaced wooden ones.
Prior to the 1930s, assorted efforts had been made to create commercially viable wheelchairs of both manual and power persuasions, but
none caught on until 1933 when paraplegic Herbert Everest, a mining engineer, and Harry Jennings, a mechanical engineer, introduced the first folding manual wheelchair with mass market appeal.
E&J, as the firm came to be called, monopolized the wheelchair market for decades. The U.S. Department of Justice eventually filed an antitrust suit against the company for rigging wheelchair prices, and the case was settled out of court. E&J survived that little mess and is still in business.
An 1800s photo portrays large wooden wheels and absence of push rims (the latter didn’t arrive until 1881). Photo courtesy of Robert Bogdan Collection
“The evolution of wheelchairs as a whole has mirrored the progress of the independent living movement,” said Mark Smith, program manager for Pride Mobility Products Corp. “As
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