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History and Development The wheelchair was developed over centuries using man’s earliest inventions, the chair and the wheel. The first records we have of wheel being combined with chairs are of spoked wheels on chariots back in 1300 B.C. in China. The next step in evolution of the wheelchair was the wheelbarrow, a 3rd century invention of the Chinese in which they carried the sick or disabled to the “fountain of youth”. In 1595 King Phillip II of Spain had his own rolling chair with foot rests. Next came the self-propelled chair. Stephen Farfler, a paraplegic watchmaker, built a hand pedaled chair in 1655 as a means for him to get around. The “Bath” Chair, developed in Bath, England, was one of the first marketed wheelchairs. In