#stephan farffler

[clatterbane]

Probably my favorite from this gallery someone posted:

r/wheelchairs - Images from my history of wheelchairs VR gallery

0 votes and 4 comments so far on Reddit

A handcycle developed by Stephan Farffler:

[A] German watchmaker of the seventeenth century whose invention of a manumotive carriage in 1655 is widely considered to have been the first self-propelled wheelchair...

Farffler, who was either a paraplegic[3][4] or an amputee,[5] also created a device for turning an hourglass at regular intervals and added chimes to the clocktower of Altdorf bei Nürnberg.[6]

That heavy wooden construction looks like a real beast to crank around in, but you have to give the man some serious extra points for determination!

(That in came up in the comments on another post showing some much more recent historical wheelchair technology, in case anyone might be interested.)

[escuerzoresucitado]

The first self-propelled wheelchair was invented in 1655 by a Nuremberg watchmaker, Stephan Farffler [1633-1689], who created his own mobility aid when he was just 22 years old after breaking his back in an accident at the age of three years old [according to another version – had an amputation]. Using his mechanical experience as a watchmaker, Farffler's wheelchair frame was based on a tricycle chassis and operated by turning knobs attached to a geared front wheel via a system of cranks and gears. It was several hundred years before the invention of the bicycle, so it is believed that the invention of the tricycle was the forerunner of the modern tricycle and two-wheeled bicycle.

0 – Stephan Farffler and his invention

1 - three-wheeled European wheelchair, 1850-1890.

2 - built in Britain in 1910-1920. cart with a chain drive.

3 - John Dawson's wheelchair, also known in those days as the "Bath Chair", 1783.

4 – Queen Victoria's bathing chair from the period when she was no longer so lively, 1893.

5 - English folding wheelchair "Model 8", 1958.

6 - "Shadow Racer" lightweight sports wheelchair built by injured Vietnam veteran Jim Martinson.