Dear Will,
Of course the wheelbarrow comes from China in many forms including transport for people. As far as I am aware it only appeared in Europe after one of the Crusade wars in the early middle ages. I have done no research on litters or the walking stick. I consider that it could be strongly argued that the walking stick was the oldest mobility aid.
There is very little written evidence about any of the three-wheeled representations I have seen. I would recommend Garland, Robert, (1995:), The Eye of the Beholder, if you have not already read it.
Using etymology as a research tool, there are a number of references in the Old English annotations in the Lindisfarne Gospels (Cotton Nero D. IV) to 'paralytico' annotated to 'earth crypel' which might suggest that poor people with physical impairments affecting their mobility simply had to crawl on the ground in order to travel. See https://www.academia.edu/3631339/The_Old_English_Origin_of_the_Word_Cripple_Revised_-_Keith_Armstrong
Some of the Greek stories of Triptolemos seems to suggest that he might have had a physical impairment affecting his mobility.
The narrative of king Agesilaus II, or Agesilaos II who was born with a physical impairment in ancient Sparta reveals that our school book history texts wehre wrong in assuming that all disabled children were put death in Sparta.
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Thank you for writing up your research on this fascinating object! It certainly seems plausible that this kind of device would have been used by the physically impaired as well as infants in antiquity. I was wondering if you had looked at the written evidence from the Graeco-Roman period for other forms of mobility aids (primarily litters or wheelbarrow-like devices) used by the physically impaired to perhaps provide comparative material for this device.
All the best,
Will Southwell-Wright
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