Search the WFT Wheelchair

History of the Wheelchair

Views: 999 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: Origin: Site

The earliest records of wheeled furniture are an inscription found on a stone slate in China, dating between the 6th and 5th century BCE. The first records of wheeled seats being used for transporting disabled people date to 3 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, around 525 CE, when images of wheeled chairs made specifically to carry people begin to occur in Chinese art. 


Confucius in a wheelchair_and_children

The above picture depiction of Confucius in a wheelchair, dating to ca. 1680. The artist may have been thinking of methods of transport common in his own day.