page_title: Wheelchair
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Wheelchair / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: 1751recueildouvr00grol (find matches) Title: Recueil d'ouvrages curieux de mathematique et de mecanique; ou, Description du cabinet de monsieur Grollier de Serviere. Avec près de 100 planches en taille-douce Year: 1751 (1750s) Authors: Grollier de Servière, Nicolas, comte, 1677-1745 Subjects: Machinery Industrial arts Publisher: Paris, C.A. Jombert Contributing Library: Fisher - University of Toronto Digitizing Sponsor: University of Ottawa View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: U FAUTEUIL TT^ES commode pour les boiteux , on pour ceux qui ont lagoûte aux jambes i ^ par le moïen duquel on peutCe promener dans un apartement de plein pie, oHdans un Jardin , fans le fecours de perfonne. Planche LXXXVI. Figure 114. COmme le fauteuil ^, repofe tout entier fur lescinq roues B. B. C. C, &amp;C ^D. Ton remarquera quenon-feulement il doit marcher de toute nccefTité, lorf-que fes roues tournent \ mais quil doit encore avancerou reculer , &amp; aller à droit ou à gauche , félon les dif-férensfens que les roues tiendront entre ellçs dans leurmouvement. Cependant pour Texécution de cette Machine, dan^létat que la Figure la repréfente , il ne faut donner lemouvement quaux deux principales roues B. B. Carles deux C. C. ne fervent proprement que pour foute-nir en équilibre le fauteuil, &amp; la fpnâ:ion de celle mar-quée î). neft que pour le faire tourner plus exafte-ment. On donne le mouvement nécelTaire aux deuxroues principales en cette manière, Ces LXXXVI Text Appearing After Image: De Q^r. de Sewiere. 14^ Ces roues B. B. étant dentées fur champ, répondentpar leur pignon E. &amp;C par 1 arbre , ou le long effieu F.aux manivelles C. Ainfi, lorfque vous êtes alTis dans lefauteiiil ^. &amp;: que vous tournés avec vos mains les ma-nivelles , vous faites néceffairement tourner les rouesÏB. Se par conféquent vous faites marcher le fauteuil. Sivous fouhaités aller en avant &amp;: en droite ligne , voustournés également &amp;C en même tems vos manivelles endehors. Si vous fouhaités reculer auffi en droite hcrne,vous les tournés en dedans ^ c eft-à-dire , dansun^fensrout oppofc au premier. Si ceft à droit ou à gauche quevous voulés aller, vous tournés inégalement vos mani-velles , Scplus ou moins, félon quil eft néceffaire -, S&gt;Cenfin fi vous voulés tourner fur un point, vous n avésqua tourner les mêmes manivelles à contrefens lunede lautre , je veux dire, lune en dedans, &amp;c Tautre endehors. ^ Vous pourrés ajouter au fauteuil les autres c Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, used when walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, old age related problems, or disability. These can includes spinal cord injuries, broken leg, cerebral palsy, brain injury, osteogenesis imperfecta a.k.a. brittle bones, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, spina bifida, and more. Wheelchairs come in a wide variety of formats to meet the specific needs of their users. They may include specialized seating adaptions, individualized controls, and may be specific to particular activities, as seen with sports wheelchairs and beach wheelchairs. The most widely recognized distinction is between powered wheelchairs, where propulsion is provided by batteries and electric motors, and manually propelled wheelchairs, where the propulsive force is provided either by the wheelchair user/occupant pushing the wheelchair by hand, by an attendant pushing from the rear using handle, or by an attendant pushing from the side use a handle attachment.
context_section_description: The earliest records of wheeled furniture are an inscription found on a stone slate in China and a child's bed depicted in a frieze on a Greek vase, both dating between the 6th and 5th century BCE. The first records of wheeled seats being used for transporting disabled persons date to three centuries later in China; the Chinese used early wheelbarrows to move people as well as heavy objects. A distinction between the two functions was not made for another several hundred years, until around 525 CE, when images of wheeled chairs made specifically to carry people begin to occur in Chinese art.
  Although Europeans eventually developed a similar design, this method of transportation did not exist until 1595 when an unknown inventor from Spain built one for King Phillip II. Although it was an elaborate chair having both armrests and leg rests, the design still had shortcomings since it did not feature an efficient propulsion mechanism and thus, requires assistance to propel it. This makes the design more of a modern-day highchair or portable throne for the wealthy rather than a modern-day wheelchair for the disabled.
  In 1655, Stephan Farffler, a 22-year-old paraplegic watchmaker, built the world's first self-propelling chair on a three-wheel chassis using a system of cranks and cogwheels. However, the device had an appearance of a hand bike more than a wheelchair since the design included hand cranks mounted at the front wheel.
  The invalid carriage or Bath chair brought the technology into more common use from around 1760.
  In 1887, wheelchairs ("rolling chairs") were introduced to Atlantic City so invalid tourists could rent them to enjoy the Boardwalk. Soon, many healthy tourists also rented the decorated "rolling chairs" and servants to push them as a show of decadence and treatment they could never experience at home.
  In 1933 Harry C. Jennings, Sr. and his disabled friend Herbert Everest, both mechanical engineers, invented the first lightweight, steel, folding, portable wheelchair. Everest had previously broken his back in a mining accident. Everest and Jennings saw the business potential of the invention and went on to become the first mass-market manufacturers of wheelchairs. Their "X-brace" design is still in common use, albeit with updated materials and other improvements. The X-brace idea came to Harry from the men's folding “camp chairs / stools”, rotated 90 degrees, that Harry and Herbert used in the outdoors and at the mines.
caption: Nicolas Grollier de Servière (1596–1689) Wheelchair in his Cabinet of curiosities[1]
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