Blind

BLIND. - Scientifically, "blind" must be understood as the individual whose eyes are entirely lacking in the sense of sight, that is, they are not even capable of perceiving the sole difference between light and shadow.

Socially, the definition of blindness varies from country to country. In some it is given in practical terms, such as the impossibility of walking without a guide along unfamiliar routes, or of counting separated fingers at a fixed distance (1 or 2 m.), or of performing work for which sight is essential. In the United States, a person is defined as blind who possesses a visual acuity no greater than 20/200 in the better eye with corrective lenses, or greater than 20/200 but with such a limitation of the visual field that the widest diameter of the field itself does not extend to an angle greater than 20 degrees. In Italy, visual acuity must not exceed one tenth in both eyes, with the best possible and tolerated correction; moreover, those are also considered blind who, although having more than 1/10 of vision, have such limitations in the visual field that the excess portion of visus is not fully usable, or who have alterations of the light sense or disturbances of the muscular equilibrium of the eye.

In general, sight is regarded as indispensable for the performance of any normal activity, so that the capacity of the blind, demonstrated many times over, in the exercise of a profession or trade, is considered an exceptional fact and attributed to special sensory compensations. In reality, every blind person who does not combine blindness with other physical or mental impairments can participate in the productive life of the community, provided he is suitably educated or re-educated.

The beginning of an organized educational activity on behalf of the blind occurred in Paris at the end of the 18th century, with the founding of the first institute intended for blind youths (1784) by Valentin Haüy (1745-1822).

The first problem to be solved was that of learning, whence the need for a system of writing in relief perceptible to touch. Various systems were gradually experimented with, but the one that, for its completeness and practicality, has been universally accepted is the system devised in 1829 by Louis Braille (v.). The Braille system is based on the various possible combinations of a number of raised dots not exceeding six, to each of which corresponds a letter of the alphabet, a punctuation mark or a graphic indication. The same combinations are used for numbers and for musical notation. The introduction of this system has made accessible to the blind the boundless field of culture and knowledge.

Always substituting visual elements with others perceptible to touch, the blind can now concretely learn disciplines such as geography, geometry, natural sciences, etc., with the aid of geographical maps and relief drawings, of plaster models, of models and adapted instruments. With such special teaching material, the blind person is given the possibility of arriving at the conception of forms and their reproduction by means of plastic art and drawing.

Furthermore, the education of hearing is fundamental for accustoming the blind person to spatial evaluations, to the localization and appreciation of obstacles, to the perception of architectural forms to the extent that they can be ascertained through the reflection of sounds: which permits the development of ease and autonomy in movement and of the possibilities of orientation. To a lesser degree, the other senses too, and particularly smell, exercise a function of complementary compensation.

Only from this educational development derive the sensory possibilities of the blind that the public often erroneously attributes to a nonexistent sixth sense.

The first institute for the blind founded in Italy was that of Sts. Joseph and Lucy of Naples (1818); there followed the Configliachi institute of Padua (1838) and the institute of Milan (1840); subsequently all the principal cities of Italy had their institute for the blind, owing to the initiative of religious Orders or of private benefactors. At present Italy possesses a truly imposing school complex, which has required the creation of a coordinating body: the National Federation of Institutions for the Blind, established in 1923 (Rome, Via Quattro Fontane, no. 147). The Federation, in agreement with the Italian Union of the Blind, obtained the extension to the blind of compulsory education and the related intervention of the State with contributions for the institutes and of the provinces with the payment of fees for indigent blind persons (D. L. 30 Jan. 1923, no. 2839); the requirement of specialization for teachers and assistants in schools for the blind, through an annual course of training in the school of method for educators of the blind, established for that purpose (R. D. 15 Nov. 1925, no. 2483); the specialization of the institutes, the implementation of which is still in progress.

Among the thirty existing institutes, fourteen, recognized by the State as institutions of instruction and education, with elementary school and pre-vocational training, are placed under the authority of the Ministry of Public Education, and for them stateization is imminent. Among others, mention should be made, besides the school of method of Rome cited above (which, on the death of its founder Augusto Romagnoli, has taken his name): the Francesco Cavazza institute of Bologna (music school and boarding school for secondary and university students); the Martuscelli institute of Naples (music school and boarding school for secondary students); the Seraphic institute for late-blind persons of Assisi, run by the Rogationists; the St. Alexis institute of Rome (music school), run by the Somascans. Among the other Italian institutions, mention should be made of the national Braille printing house (Via Antonio Cocchi, no. 2, Florence), which provides for the supply of textbooks for the schools, as well as for the publication of books of various kinds; the national Braille library of Monza, which possesses numerous works intended for lending, as well as a record library, still in the development phase, for the dissemination of the talking book.

It should be noted how educational action can have a notable effect of recovery also with regard to those who have become blind in adulthood, who, although they cannot always achieve the results of sensory compensation that are proper to childhood, nevertheless succeed in regaining a capacity for intellectual or manual work. A specialized institute for vocational instruction, with its seat in Florence, provides for their re-education, as well as for the specialization in the various trades of young blind persons who have left the other institutes. At the same institute, a school of massage, the only one recognized in Italy, provides for the training of massage therapists.

The experience of the last half century has demonstrated how the blind can also apply themselves to manual work, in those activities or in those phases of processing in which the use of sight is not indispensable. Apart from massage and the tuning and repair of musical instruments, in which the capacities of the blind equal and perhaps surpass those of the sighted, other artisanal activities are open to the possibilities of those deprived of sight, such as the making of brushes, of wickerwork, of knitwear, of paper and cardboard, of weaving, etc. Even in normal industry the activity of the blind can be carried out, as, for example, in the calibration of metal objects. Moreover, special devices, such as, for example, the telephone switchboard that replaces optical signals with acoustic ones, allow the blind to be profitably employed.

It should be noted that, until 1918, work for the blind was regarded more as an element of recreation on the charitable plane than as an actual possibility of productivity. The experiments carried out in the United States (Ford) and in Germany demonstrated the contrary, however, that is, the possibility of placing the blind both in ordinary industry and in special workshops, where they would work with the assistance of sighted workers. The latter has been the system that prevailed in Italy, with the establishment of the national employment agency for the blind (1934), coordinator of the activity of the various workshops for knitting, weaving, hemp-working, bag-making, shoemaking, metal smallwares, etc., scattered throughout Italy; an organization that existed without burdening public funds until 1944, but which unfortunately has recently suffered the grave consequences of the post-war period.

Intellectual work offers the blind vast possibilities. There exist today in Italy numerous teachers in public and private schools (about 150) and professionals who carry on their activity in law, journalism, the management of commercial and industrial firms, etc.; music too, both as teaching and as performance, constitutes a fertile field of activity for the blind endowed with specific aptitudes.

The capacity of the blind in the organizational field has been demonstrated throughout the world, and in particular in Italy, by their trade associations. In Italy, the Italian Union of the Blind, founded in 1920 for cooperation between blind civilians and blinded war veterans, has gradually assumed ever greater importance, until obtaining recognition of the "representation and protection of the moral and material interests of the visually impaired before public administrations and before all bodies and institutions whose purpose is the assistance, education and employment of the blind" (Legislative Decree of 26 Sept. 1947, no. 1047).

To the Union, which carries on its activity through a central office (Rome, Via Quattro Fontane, no. 147), 23 regional or interprovincial sections and numerous subsections and representatives, the State is entrusting ever greater tasks. In 1948, in application of art. 38 of the Constitution, the Union was for the first time granted the funds necessary for the distribution to all needy blind persons of a monthly assistance allowance, the amount of which is still modest; the said grant, renewed for the year 1949, is still provisional in character, but tends to become continuing.

Moreover, through the activity of one of its building bodies, the Union provides its members with public housing on the basis of an organic construction plan in the various cities.

The Union provides for the printing of three monthly periodicals in braille, the Corriere Braille, the Gennariello (for children), the Faro (musical), and of one in ink, the Corriere dei c.

Among the principal foreign institutions that devote their activity to the education, employment and assistance of the blind, mention should be made of: the Association Valentin Haüy pour le bien des aveugles, Paris; the Ligue Braille, Brussels; the Stichting "Het Nederlandse Blindenwezen", Amsterdam; the Blindenstudienanstalt, Marburg-Lahn; the Österreichischer Blindenverband, Vienna; the Dansk Blindenhof, Copenhagen; the Ostlandske Blindforbund, Oslo; the Blind Institute, Tomteboda (Sweden); the National Institute for the Blind, London; the St. Dunstan's College, London; the Irish National League of the Blind, Dublin; the Organización Nacional de Ciegos, Madrid; the Schweizerischer Blindenverband, Zurich; the American Foundation for the Blind, New York; the Perkins Institute, Watertown, Mass. (U.S.A.); the American Foundation for Overseas Blind, New York. By the international conference on blindness at Oxford (Aug. 1949) a promoting committee of an international federation of the blind was elected, with provisional headquarters in Paris.

Giovanni Quagliotti

II. THE BLIND IN CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY

Le guarigioni dei c. operate dal Signore figurano ben presto nell'arte funeraria cristiana, sia in pittura che nella scultura.

The cemetery paintings present the scene of the miracle according to St. John's account (9:1 ff.); however, Christ touches the blind man's head, not his eyes.

The oldest representation was in a cubiculum of the cemetery of Domitilla, seen intact by Bosio (Roma sotterranea, Rome 1632, p. 249); the fresco was detached by Boldetti and given, together with others from the same cemetery, to the Benedictine Placido Scammacca, who placed them in his monastery of S. Nicolò in Catania, where they are preserved, disfigured by restorations (H. Achelis, Römische Katakombenbilder in Catania, Berlin 1932, p. 14 and figs. 8, 96).

The miracle is then represented in an arcosolium of Priscilla (Wilpert, Pitture, pl. 70, 1); in three cubicula of the cemetery Ad duas lauros (ibid., pls. 68, 3; 105, 2; id., Ein Cyklus christologischer Gemälde aus der Katakombe der heil. Petrus und Marcellinus, Freiburg im Breisgau 1891, pls. 1-4).

In sculptures, on the other hand, several representations can be distinguished; in some sarcophagi one finds the scene of the healing of the blind Bartimaeus, narrated in Mk. 10:46-52 and Lk. 18:35-43; the example of the fragment from Villa Doria in Rome is typical.

The healing of the man born blind is one of the subjects most frequently represented on ancient Christian sarcophagi; Garrucci and Le Blant had given fifty-seven examples of it; Wilpert added more than twenty (the examples listed by Garrucci and Le Blant are in Wilpert, Sarcofagi, II, p. 296, n. 2; those of Wilpert, ibid., nn. 3 and 4). The most characteristic specimens are offered by the fragments from the cemeteries of St. Callixtus, St. Sebastian and Praetextatus (ibid., pls. 228, 3; 229, 7; 231, 7).

A fine example has been found in a sarcophagus recently discovered near the confessio of St. Peter in the Vatican. A group of sarcophagi, on the other hand, presents the scene of the healing of two blind men, according to Mt. 20:30-34, whose eyes the Lord touches and restores to sight; generally the first blind man leans on a staff, while the other guides himself by keeping his hand on the shoulder of the former; this scene generally opens the christological series in the center of sarcophagi, especially in Gaul, for example, in the sarcophagi of Dil (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, II, p. 295, pl. 230, 2), of Clermont (ibid., p. 295, pl. 230, 5), of Valence (ibid., pp. 295-96, pl. 214, 6), of Leiden (ibid., p. 296, fig. 93), of Tarragona (ibid., p. 296, pl. 230, 5).

Il prototipo romano è il sarcofago lateranense 125; nel sarcofago di Bassa in Pretestato i c. sono tre (ibid., p. 296 e tav. 207, 1).

St. Mark speaks of the healing of the blind man of Bethsaida (Mk. 8:22-25). The scene is depicted on a sarcophagus now in the atrium of the basilica of St. Lawrence in Agro Verano. The Lord holds the blind man's head between his hands and touches one of his eyes with his right hand (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, II, p. 296, pl. 197, 5).

In antichi monumenti cristiani non funerari la guarigione del c. si trova: in una delle formelle lignee intagliate della porta di S. Sabina in Roma (sec. v); in un vaso d'argento edito dal Bottari (Sculture, pitture sacre estratte dai cimiteri in Roma, I, Roma 1737, p. 18, 5).

Also in the 5th century we find scenes of the healing of the blind man on gilded glass, on ivories, as, for example, in the Brescia casket or in a diptych of the cathedral of Palermo (Venturi, I, fig. 382); on fabrics, as is attested by Asterius of Amasea (PG 40, 166-67); while the miracle of the blind men of Jericho appears in the mosaic cycle di S. Martino «in caelo aureo» (S. Apollinare nuovo) in Ravenna. Nel sec. vi torna la guarigione del c. in una delle tavolette eburnee d'un evangelario di Milano (R. Garrucci, Storia dell'arte cristiana, Prato 1881, tavv. 454-55).

The expressive representation of the healing of the man born blind is found in the Codex of Rossano (6th century), and that of the blind men of Jericho in one of the 5 miniatures of the Sinope Evangelary, of the same century (H. Omont, Notice sur un très ancien manuscrit de l'évangile de L. Mathieu en onciale d'or sur parchemin pourpré et orné de miniatures conservé à la bibliothèque Nationale n. 1286 du Supplément grec, in Notices et extraits des manuscrits, 36 [1901], pp. 599-675). In sculpture the healing of the blind man is in the ciborium of St. Mark's in Venice (Wilpert, Mosaiken, pp. 814-15 and figs. 377-78); in painting the scene is depicted on one of the columns of the presbytery of S. Maria Antiqua in Rome from the time of John VII (705); then it recurs on the altar of Vuolvinius in S. Ambrogio in Milan (824-59); in ivory on an ivory plaque of the antependium of Salerno (late 11th century; the blind Bartimaeus is represented in a miniature of the so-called Evangelary of Otto III of Bremen; in the second half of the 12th century in the mosaic cycle of Monreale; still later in the likewise mosaic cycles of the monastery of Chora, today the Kahrièdjami mosque in Constantinople, and in the church of the Metropolis of Mistra. - See Pl. CI.

Enrico Josi