During the 17th century the Jesuit, Francesco Lana, was a pioneering advocate of a useful system of writing for the blind.  He searched tirelessly for new systems, such as knotted cords, letters notched into wood or various other materials.  Finally, he came up with a combined dot and line system that comes very close to that of Louis Braille. 

• Netherlands 1975. 150th anniversary of Braille script.  

• Brazil 1974. Scan by courtesy of Marge Schleining (USA). 

• Switzerland 2003. Stamp in Braille Script. 

In 1786, Valentin Haüy -- see stamp top left -- produced a first book in blind writing using relief printing of Latin-alphabet capital letters.  1810 saw the publication in Vienna of the first book for the blind where Latin-alphabet characters were embossed using dotted lines, with the help of lead type.  However, reading the characters with these two methods turned out to be too time consuming, and the relief printing also took up a lot of space.  

A French captain, Charles Barbier (1767-1843) developed a form of "night writing" for the transmission of war dispatches, a phonetic notation with a basic form consisting of 12 raised dots that were embossed on paper.  Barbier believed that his invention could also serve as a system for use by the blind and went to the Royal Institute for the Blind in Paris, where he got to know young Louis Braille who had lost his sight at the age of 3 as the result of an accident in his father's workshop.  Although Barbier's system with its numerous dots was very difficult to read, the 12-year-old Louis realized the superiority of raised dots over tactile letters, and he very quickly worked out a new system of writing consisting of a basic pattern of six raised dots.

France 1989.  Stamp issued for the aid of the blind. Scan by courtesy of Pierre Courtiade (France). A bust depicting Louis Braille, who died in 1852 from a lung disease, only 43 years old.

In 1825, he submitted the system he had developed to the Paris Institute for the Blind.  Whereas his fellow students fell to using the new system which was truly readable for blind people with enthusiasm, the Director of the institute was opposed to it from the outset, on the grounds that it separated sighted people from the blind.  He therefore prohibited the use of Braille's system, imposing severe penalties on those who defied the ban, and even went so far as to burn the books which had been printed in Braille.  It took several years for the ban to be lifted, but in 1878, at a congress in Paris, it was finally officially declared the international method for teaching at schools for the blind reading and writing world wide.  

Many -- if not most -- countries world wide have issued stamps for the aid of the blind, printed in Braille.  Any visitor to this page is invited to submit scans of stamps from their country, showing the Braille-print, and I will publish such contributions with full credits.  Below are shown examples of such stamps. 

• Great Britain 1993.  Definitive 10 Pound-note, with the denomination "10" printed in Braille.  

• Israel 2001.  A stamp in a very original design, commemorating the Institute for the Blind, Jerusalem, 1902-2002.  The stamp has a black background, symbolizing the blind person's world all in black.  The Braille-dots are in different colours for each character.  On the tabs is shown an outline drawing of the Institute for the Blind in Jerusalem.  The text is in English, Hebrew and Arabic. 

• Belgium 1975.  150th anniversary of Braille-script.  The Braille print is hardly visible on the scan, but appears in black dots along the left side of the violet part of the stamp.