Stephan Farffler (1633 – October 24, 1689), sometimes spelled Stephan Farfler, was 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. The three-wheeled device is also believed to have been a precursor to the modern-day tricycle and bicycle."Medical Innovations - Wheelchair," Science Reporter, Volume 44, 2007, 397.
Farffler, who was either a paraplegicJane Bidder, Inventions We Use to Go Places (London: Franklin Watts, 2006, 18)Rory A. Cooper, Hisaichi Ohnabe, and Douglas A. Hobson, An Introduction to Rehabilitation Engineering (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2007, 131) or an amputee,Clive Richardson, Driving, the development and use of horse-drawn vehicles (B. T. Batsford, 1985, 136) also created a device for turning an hourglass at regular intervals and added chimes to the clocktower of Altdorf bei Nürnberg.Frederick James Britten et al., Britten's old clocks and watches and their makers (E. Methuen, 1973, 391)
According to the German astronomer Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr, Farffler suffered an accident at the age of three that paralyzed him from the hips down.Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr, Historische Nachricht Von den Nürnbergischen Mathematicis und Künstlern, Nürnberg 1730, S. 302 Others described him as having "crippled" legs.Fabian Zilliken: Die Evolution des Fahrrads - Von der Laufmaschine zum "Custom(izing)" Artefakt, 2012, S. 10
See also List of motorized trikes
References