05 March 2025

When did Louis Braille defeat darkness?

When did Louis Braille defeat darkness?

Technically, he never did. Darkness was the only thing he could see from the age of five. But he wanted to be part of the world so badly that having no idea about what life was like outside France, he invented his own method to see and be seen by society.

Louis Braille was born the same day with Isaac Newton (166 years apart) and the same year with Felix Mendelssohn, Charles Darwin, and Abraham Lincoln. They never met each other but all lived in the same historical landscape.

Braille was not an ophthalmologist, not even a medical worker. It was all a twist of fate that he became known for one of the most necessary inventions for visually impaired people.

1812, when the first university department of ophthalmology appeared in Vienna

A vivid 3-year-old boy was having fun with pieces of leather and awls[=EX1] in his father’s workshop. The man was busy making horse tacks and the son was just discovering the variety of tools he could find on the table.

Little Louis cried bitterly of pain when he accidentally punched an awl into his eye. His parents did everything possible to safe the kid’s sight. The best solution they could afford with a local doctor’s help was a medical trip to Paris, but germs were spreading way faster.

Ophthalmology as a science was developing – the first dedicated hospital had opened seven years ago in London, and Vienna was about to launch the first university department, but it meant nothing for Louis. The boy could not understand why the world was becoming darker from day to day. Both his eyes were losing the ability to see. The condition would result in complete blindness in about two years.

1819, when blindness almost completely spoiled cargo of a French ship

It was the next year after slave trade was once again banned by law in France. The French ship Le Rȏdeur left Nigeria for France with the cargo of nearly 200 captives to be sent to markets further. In two weeks almost all people on board, the crew and the slaves, were affected by a virulent disease and resulted partially or completely blind. The crew was worrying about the health of passengers on board but for one reason only – the passengers were slaves meant as trading goods and they were now hardly saleable.

Counting their expenses larger than the potential income, the crew "solved" the problem by getting rid of those completely and permanently blind 39 slaves by throwing them into the sea.

Louis Braille was 10 at the moment, also suffered from blindness and, of course, knew nothing about the story. His life was about to become a little bit happier as one of the first schools for blind children in the world, the Royal Institute for Blind Youth (now – National Institute for Blind Youth) in Paris accepted him as a student.

1821, when a former soldier shared his secret

12-year-old Louis Braille had spent more than half of his life blind. He enjoyed studying but was now fully aware of the downsides of the reading system then used – it was not really appropriate for reading with fingers, took too much space and did not allow to write.

Now, we all know that French is never pronounced the way it is spelled and that its words often seem to have more letters than it would be strictly necessary to denote desired sounds. French soldiers were not particularly excited about it, and for faster communication at night, they invented sonography. It was a code based on combinations of 12 dots impressed into paper where each combination meant a sound instead of a letter.

A former servant of the French artillery Charles Barbier had been trying to reach students at the Institute for Blind Youth for two years to share the system with them. This time he finally managed. And luckily, Louis Braille was one of the listeners.

1825, when Darwin neglected medicine and surgery studies

Both Louis Braille and Charles Darwin were 16 years old at the time, and that’s probably the only thing they really shared. Charles had started his education at a day school, but lost his mother when he was eight and switched to another school where pupils could live while receiving formal education. By 1825, he was particularly curious about natural history while his father was trying to make his second youngest child a medical doctor. He offered Charles an apprenticeship and studies at University of Edinburgh Medical School, but nothing worked.

Meanwhile, a blind young man was sitting in a building some 30 minutes away from Panthéon in Paris. This building was the only one in Paris he could truly walk thorugh with his eyes closed. Louis's head was busy searching for a way to make communication available for blind.

Inspired by Barbier’s experience and using slate and stylus sets he had donated, Louis created his very first reading-and-writing system where letters were represented as combinations of dots and dashes. He would later complete it with numbers and punctuation marks and dismiss dashes as they were more difficult to read by tactile sensation.

1829, when he expanded his own system to …music!

Braille was a passionate musician. He learnt to play organ, piano, and cello and at some point decided those who wanted to play but could not see properly should also have a chance to do so. He adapted the system of dots to transcribe musical notes and rhythm and published his first book to describe how to use the method for writing words as well as music and plainsongs.

1833, when he became another most important "eye doctor"

It was not what Braille wanted but how the story went.

In the history of ophthalmology, there already were eye surgeons in European countries (for comparison, indigenous healers in North America treated some eye diseases by rubbing or scraping the eyes or eyelids). One of the best experts in France was then Joseph Forlenze. Poor people remembered him for free operations he performed, soldiers knew he could treat their eye diseases, even a minister of France and a Cardinal in Rome sought help from this ophthalmologist. In 1833 Joseph, an old man by then, felt sick in a café and breathed his last there.

This very year France would greet Louis Braille as a full professor. He was actively teaching history, geometry and algebra. He was not able to cure eye diseases, but he showed blind people could certainly receive education, be active members of society, practice music or other hobbies.

At this moment, it was still four years before Abraham Lincoln would witness slavery with his own eyes for the first time, ten years before Felix Mendelssohn would compose his Wedding March, 26 years before Charles Darwin would publish his most famous book On the Origin of Species...

When fully recognised!

...and these were already the years after Braille's death.

Louis Braille’s life was not too long but he filled his every minute with sense, no matter what’s around.

It is said that some sighted executives were too afraid that Braille’s system would make those visually impaired so independent that they would reject extra assistance. Thus, the administration prevented Braille’s reading-and-writing method from being officially adopted by the Institute. The invention was fully accepted as a valid method a few years after Louis Braille’s death due to his students' work. 80 years later the system was finally appreciated in the whole world and resulted in a universal code for English.

Louis Braille tried his best to defeat the darkness. Technically, he never did.
In reality, he still does it for thousands of people who are now able to fill their time with sense, too.

[=EX1] a tool that can puncture new holes or enlarge existing holes in a variety of materials