disability-history-timeline-2013

Medical and technical developments1946The Invacar company is founded, going onto win a government contract to supplytransport for physically impaired peoplethroughout the 1950s and 1960s. With itsdistinctive pale blue colour, the Invacar wasa common sight and went through about50 versions. Driving the vehicle becomesillegal on UK roads in 2003 as it does notmeet new safety standards.1947Bell Labs invent the transistor, which isquickly adopted for hearing aids.1950The drug chlorpromazine is produced totreat schizophrenia, mania and others.As one of the major innovations inpsychiatry, enabling far more people to bedischarged after relatively short stays onpsychiatric wards. It plays a major part inthe closure of asylums begun in the 1960sand hastened from the 1980s.1950The first polio vaccine is developed.Between 1947 and 1958 around50,000 people in Britain contract polio.Numbers begin to decline from the 1950s.39