The History of Wheelchairs – Getting Around
Believe it or not wheelchairs have been around for almost 1400 years, and probably even sooner. Ancient historians believe the wheel was created around 4000 B.C. and there's no evidence suggesting that humans didn't create methods of transportation for the disabled and sick. It's thought that human ingenuity and design most likely created the first wheelchair in ancient Greek and Roman times, especially for the more sickly noble classes who could afford such luxuries of design.
The first visual representation of a wheelchair dates back to China around 500 A.D. on the sarcophagus of a rich merchant. It's likely that wheelchairs were used widely throughout the Far East among the rich and noble classes. Between this time in antiquity and up around 1600, written history of the wheelchair is lacking until King Philip II of Spain was drawn seated in a wheelchair.
Modern Wheelchair History
The most well-known wheelchairs of recent history were produced for kings and nobles. After King Philip II's well-known wheelchair, the next King to use a wheelchair was King Louis XIV of France during recovery for an operation. By 1783, John Dawson of Bath, England took advantage of his location (well-known for natural healing spas where many disabled adults sought remedy) and created a three-wheel chair that quickly became popular among the medical tourists in Bath, England.
The 1800s and the American Civil War brought a new face to the wheelchair industry in the west. Many disabled veterans survived their Civil War wounds due to advanced medical treatment and required mobility assistance for the rest of their lives. By 1894, the first wheelchair patent was registered in the United States and featured the popular manual wheelchair design we know today. By 1932, Herbert Everest and Harold Jennings teamed up to produce the first folding wheelchair design that's still used in hospitals for transport today.
Early in wheelchair design industry, they were produced with wood which made them very heavy and often patients could not wheel themselves around. Everest and Jennings revolutionized the wheelchair design by using lighter metals and wicker that made the chair easier to mass-produce. The lighter design also made the chair easier to self-propel, an important feature that gave many disabled adults new independence.
The New Electric Revolution
In 1916, British engineers created the first motorized chair known as the “electric chair” (not the same as the chair used in capital punishment). The new electric chairs were expensive and not mass-produced, but they provided a medium for future electric chair production. The first electric chair used belts and a drive train to power the chair. Later less expensive electric chairs had batteries and drive motors rigged to the manual chair frame. These chairs were not integrative and lacked a central control system intuitive to the operator.
By 1950, Everest and Jennings recognized the power of the motorized wheelchair design. They brought the first motorized wheelchair design to America and quickly produced transistor-motor controlled wheelchairs for public use. In the 1980s, the development of the microprocessor revolutionized the ability to create smaller electronics with more complex capabilities. The fully integrated motorized chair you see today owes much to the development of computers and microprocessor technology.
About the Author
Nick Asensio lives in San Francisco with his wife Julia and their three children. Despite not being disabled himself, Nick has long had a passion for helping the disabled after growing up with a disabled parent. Visit his website for the very latest in news and offers including information on purchasing a used handicapped van, wheel chair lifts and other assisted living equipment for the disabled.
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