Braille
Braille began as military writing, known as “night writing”. 1819. It was introduced by the French army in 1917 to allow communication at night without talking. Later, a 15-year-old Frenchman, Louis Braille, cracked the code and developed the more rational Braille alphabet we know today.
The white cane
Although the white cane is now internationally accepted as a symbol for blind people, different countries have different rules on how to make a white cane. In the UK, for example, a white cane indicates that the wearer is visually impaired, but if it has two red bars on it, it indicates that the wearer is both blind and deaf.
World outlook
In 2015, there were 15 million blind people in the world, and by 2050 there will be around 45 million. The reasons for this increase are demographic trends (world population growth) and an ageing population, according to the authors of the study, who collected data on vision problems in 188 countries.