wheelchair, history of the
Wernher von Braun, rocket pioneer and former director of NASA's George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, testing a wheelchair controlled by eye movements sensed by special glasses. Such devices are by-products of space research.
history of the wheelchair
history of the wheelchair, the development over time of wheelchairs. Precisely when the first wheeled chairs were invented and used for disabled persons is unknown. Some scholars suspect that the history of the wheelchair begins sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries bce, possibly with the development of wheeled furniture and two-wheeled carts. Wheeled chairs may have entered Europe about the 12th century, along with the wheelbarrow. However, the first recorded use of self-propelled chairs...