How did Louis Braille go blind?

Answer 1

Louis Braille became blind at the age of three. He was playing with an awl in his fathers workshop, and it slipped out of his hands, it hit him in the eye. They thought it wasn't serious at first, but then it became infected.

Answer 2: Louis Braille was born in 1809 in the village of Coupvray in France, about 25 miles [40 km] from Paris. His father, Simon-René Braille, made a living as a harness maker. Perhaps young Louis often played in his father's workshop. On one occasion, however, it was the setting for a terrible accident. Gripping a sharp pointed tool-possibly an awl-Louis inadvertently plunged it into his eye. The damage was irreversible. Worse still, the infection soon spread to his other eye. At the tender age of three, Louis became totally blind.

Trying to make the best of the situation, Louis' parents and the parish priest, Jacques Palluy, arranged for Louis to sit in on classes held at the local school. Louis absorbed much of what he heard. In fact, some years he was at the head of his class! But there were limits to what a blind person could learn using methods that were designed for the sighted. Hence, in 1819, Louis was enrolled in the Royal Institute for Blind Youth.

The founder of the institute, Valentin Haüy, was one of the first to establish a program to help the blind to read. His desire was to combat the prevailing notion that blindness precluded a person from the benefits of a formal education. Haüy's early experiments involved embossing large raised letters on thick paper. Although crude, these efforts planted seeds that would later take root.

Braille learned how to read the large embossed letters in the books of Haüy's small library. He realized, however, that this approach to learning was slow and impractical. After all, letters were designed for the eyes-not the fingers. Fortunately, someone else who recognized these limitations was about to appear on the scene.

In 1821, when Louis Braille was just 12 years old, Charles Barbier, a retired French artillery captain, visited the institute. There he presented a means of communication called night writing, later called sonography. Night writing was developed for use on the battlefield. It was a tactile method of communication, using raised dots arranged in rectangular form six dots high by two dots wide. This concept of using a code to represent words phonetically struck a responsive chord at the school. Braille enthusiastically applied himself to this new approach and even made improvements to it. But to make the system truly practical, Braille had to persevere. He wrote in his diary: "If my eyes will not tell me about men and events, ideas and doctrines, I must find another way."

So for the next two years, Braille worked doggedly to simplify the code. Finally, he developed a refined and elegant method based on a cell only three dots high by two dots wide. In 1824, at the age of 15, Louis Braille completed a six-dot cell system. Soon thereafter, Braille began teaching at the institute, and in 1829 he published his unique method of communication known today by his name. Except for minor refinements, his system remains essentially unchanged to this day.

Making Braille Available Worldwide

The late 1820's saw the publication of the first book that explained Braille's raised-dot invention; but the invention was slow to gain wide acceptance. Even at the institute, the new code was not officially adopted until 1854-two years after Braille's death. Nevertheless, this vastly superior method eventually gained popularity.

Several organizations have produced Braille literature. The Watchtower Society began making such material available in 1912, when the code was still being standardized for the English-speaking world. Today, using advanced Braille printing methods, the Society embosses millions of pages each year in eight languages and distributes these to over 70 countries. Recently, the Society doubled its production capacity to meet the growing demand for Braille Bible literature.

Today the simple, well-crafted Braille code makes the written word available to millions who are visually impaired-thanks to the dedicated efforts of a young boy almost 200 years ago. See Awake article Louise Braille-Bringing Light to Prisoners of Darkness in Jehovah's Witnesses official website

Answer 2

Louis Braille got blind because he was playing with his father's awl tool and his hand slipped causing it to hit his eye. At first is was no big of a deal but then a few days later he was blinded.

Answer 3

Louis Braille became blind by accident in 1812 when he was 3 years old.

Answer 4

He was playing in his father's carpentry workshop when he was about four and hit himself in the face with a tool similar to a chisel, called an awl, by accident.

Answer 5

he was born blind.

Answer 6

1812

Answer 7

Hhgggggghhh

Answer 8

1813.

Answer 9

he was trying to be his dad but an awl slipped into his eye