Louis Braille

A portrait of Louis Braille

Louis Braille (4 January 1809 - 6 January 1852) was a French inventor. He was born in Coupvray. He invented the script braille system, which helps blind people to read. Braille is read by passing one's fingers over characters made up of an arrangement of one to six raised points. It has been adapted to almost every known language. Numbers can be written normal in Braille and there are as well some short forms for common words.

Braille was the child of a leather maker. He was the youngest of four children. He had three older siblings, two sisters and a brother. He became blind at the age of three, because he accidentally stuck a stitching awl into one eye while he was in his father's workshop. At the time, there were no antibiotics, and soon his injured eye was infected. The infection spread to his other eye and soon, he became blind in both eyes. He went to the Royal Institute of Blind Youth when he was 10. Braille was a good student, especially in science and music. Later, when he was an adult, he became a church organist. He was also a teacher at the Institute of Blind Youth. Braille died in Paris at the age of 43 of a disease called tuberculosis.

Louis Braille Media

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  Birthplace of Louis Braille in Coupvray

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  Bust and awl exhibit at the Braille birthplace museum in Coupvray

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  The first version of braille, composed for the French alphabet

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  Three forms of the letters "A" and "Z"

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  Tomb of Louis Braille, above Jean Perrin

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  Braille's memorial in the Panthéon

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  An Indian two rupee coin minted in honour of Louis Braille's 200th birth anniversary (1809-2009)