{"id":19074,"date":"2002-06-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2002-06-28T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2002\/06\/28\/braille-code-more-than-175-years-old\/"},"modified":"2022-08-29T10:47:38","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T15:47:38","slug":"braille-code-more-than-175-years-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2002\/06\/28\/braille-code-more-than-175-years-old\/","title":{"rendered":"Braille code more than 175 years old"},"content":{"rendered":"

Braille<\/p>\n

The system of raised coded dots on reading materials for the blind, known to the world as “Braille,” has roots that go back nearly 750 years to the Crusades. King Louis IX of France, returned from the Middle East, humbled from military defeat by the Moslems and determined to do charitable works. In 1260, he founded the first institution for the blind in the world, the “Quinze-Vingts” hospice in Paris. The name means “fifteen score” and refers to the first inhabitants, 300 knights blinded during the Crusades. Louis died in 1270 and was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1297 as “St. Louis.” <\/p>\n

In 1771, Valentin Hauy visited a Paris street festival and observed a number of blind entertainers humiliating themselves with slapstick comedy routines that degraded their condition. Hauy had a vision that the blind needed formal education to better their lot in life. He began learning everything he could about the blind and by 1784, he was a national authority on the subject. That spring, he gave a coin to a young blind boy begging near his church; he was shocked when the boy instantly told him the denomination of the coin correctly. Hauy had the revelation that the blind could be taught to read by using their sense of touch. <\/p>\n

The 12-year old beggar, Francois Lesueur, became Hauy’s first pupil. Within six
\nmonths, Hauy had taught Lesueur to read using wooden letters moved around to form words, and then to decipher even the faint impressions on the back side of printed pages. Hauy brought him the Royal Academy, where Lesueur’s skills stunned France’s top scholars and scientists, none of whom had believed that the blind could be taught to read. Now with newly found royal backing, Hauy opened the world’s first school for the blind – the Royal Institution for Blind Children – in Paris, with 24 pupils. <\/p>\n

In February 1819, Hauy admitted a 10-year old boy – the youngest ever accepted at the school – whose name now represents the gift of reading for the blind throughout the world – Louis Braille. Braille knew the aging Hauy for the last three years of the founder’s life, and that inspiration was immeasurable. In addition to quickly becoming the most outstanding student in the school, Braille had a researcher’s mindset and was constantly trying to improved the raised, embossed lettering system used to teach the blind how to read. But Braille didn’t invent the dotted code used today. <\/p>\n

Charles Barbier de la Serre first created the system of using coded dots instead of alphabet letters. Barbier coordinated communications for artillerymen in Napoleon’s army. He said that regular written messages were often unreadable during the smoke and chaos of a gun battery in mid-battle, so he created his own dot- and dash-based artillery code called sonography. He eventually took his code to Braille’s school. Braille had been experimenting with raised symbols for years and Barbier’s dot code was exactly what Braille needed. Although it took several more years of testing, Braille’s was able to alter Barbier’s 12-dot cell, which made most of the individual coded letters too big to fit under one fingertip, into a six-dot cell. <\/p>\n

In 1824, only 15 years old, Braille unveiled his new alphabet to his fellow students. The Braille Print System was born. At age 17, Braille was appointed the first blind apprentice teacher at the school and in 1829, at age 20, he published “Method of Writing Words, Music and Plain Songs by Means of Dots, for Use by the Blind and Arranged for Them,” his first complete book about his new system. In 1860, 600 years after the founding of the world’s first hospice for the blind, the Braille system was taught at an American school for the blind in the Missouri city of St. Louis, the same namesake of the saintly king of France who just wanted to do something good for the blind after returning home from the Crusades.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

June features multiple recognitions related to vision awareness, including Prevent Blindness and Vision Research Month, Eye Safety Week (June 27-July 5) and Heller Keller Deaf-Blind Awareness Week (the last week in June).
\nThis week, UNMC Today will run a brief history of the three most common symbols associated with blindness — the white cane, guide dog and Braille. Today’s history focuses on the Braille. Previous days’ histories of the white cane and guide dog can be found in the UNMC Today archives. (Click on story headline for history).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","department-unmc-today-todays-headlines"],"yoast_head":"\nBraille code more than 175 years old<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"June features multiple recognitions related to vision awareness, including Prevent Blindness and Vision Research Month, Eye Safety Week (June 27-July 5) and Heller Keller Deaf-Blind Awareness Week (the last week in June). 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