low the Blind Find Their Way About the City

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 230, 17 December 1927, Page 24 (Supplement)

low the Blind Find Their Way About the City

The following article on the difficulties of the blind, and their gallant right against them, is written for SI A readers by a blind citizen of Auckland.

a-=» LIND persons moving C- about alone have nowadays become a common feature of city Iji life. At one time the Rx,- unattended blind person moving along the street was in the way of being a novelty, but today blind men, and to a less extent, women, may be observed travelling without guides to and from their various places of business, recreation or worship.

Very few people, nevertheless, stop for a moment to consider how it is possible that anyone denied of sight is able, notwithstanding so great a handicap, to move about alone and fulfil functions normally requiring sight.

In order to obtain a clear conception of what the absence of sight means to the blind it is necessary to understand the relations existing between the eyes and the other sense organs. One of the functions of a person’s senses is to keep him in touch with his environment, so that he may make the adjustments which safety or comfort demand. On a superficial study of the Senses one is apt to treat them as isolated and to consider the activities and results of individual senses as entirely unconnected. Experience, however, teaches one that this is far from the truth. The senses, on the contrary, co-ordin-ate in their activities and the composite impressions conveyed to the brain are the results of their combined functioning. An illustration will suffice to make this clear. When one sights at some distance a round object, such as a cricket ball, one’s knowledge of the roundness of the distant object is not the result of a purely visual sensation. The sense of touch has played an important part in one’s judgment of shape; for if, in the past, one had never handled, as well as seen, a round object, it is certain that a visual sensation alone could not have enabled one to judge of roundness at a distance. The senses thus co-operate in conveying impressions of environment to the mind and it is this sense cooperation which makes the position of the blind less hopeless than otherwise would be the case. This coordination is peculiar to most organs so that on the loss of a member which cannot be replaced its functions are performed by the remaining active members. This is what actually happens among the human senses when blindness occurs. The senses of hearing, smell, pressure, heat, etc., co-operate in overcoming the difficulties of readjustment made necessary by the loss of sight and in the main their efforts are highly successful, although, of course, some of the specialised functions of sight are impossible of performance by substitutes; colour detection, for instance.

In order, therefore, to understand clearly the w r onderful manner in which the remaining senses take the place of sight it is necessary to examine the operation of each sense separately. In the first place it is notorious that the blind depend to a great extent upon their hearing when they are moving about. By this means they have a fairly accurate knowledge of their environment, especially of those objects which emit some sound. Their keen hearing enables them to move along the pavement without colliding with other pedestrians, to judge of the whereabouts and speeds of vehicles, and, above all, to take an intelligent interest in what is happening around them. To the alert blind man every sound has its meaning which experience has taught him to recognise. By means of sound tramcars are distinguished from motors or bicycles, horse-drawn from other vehicles and, in some instances, individual people are recognised by their distinctive footsteps. The difference between success and failure in getting about alone often lies in the ability or inability of the blind to interpret aright the innumerable sounds of the busy street. Valuable as the sense of hearing is to the blind, however, smell plays al-

most as valuable a part in their a t life. Besides its ordinary U g" sense of smell assists the blind“ e many extraordinary ways. wk.® walking along the street, “sighS persons use their eyes to lafc V. themselves of the nature of the which abut, the pavement. The bin generally distinguish one shop w another by the odours of the tej? wares. Sighted people no doubt sT sensible of these different smells vthey have no need to use them f". the same purpose as do the bliw Further, a keen sense of smell often prevent an accident. A blta person may at night be walking d o w a street which unknown to him - under repair, but if he catches a *h * of the burning kerosene of the dans' lamps, he is immediately put onfcii guard and prepares for emergence In various ways therefore the sens of smell keeps the sightless cogm= ent of their surroundings.

Of all the senses, however, the tnoc helpful in moving about is that bt w hich the blind are able to pick oj the whereabouts of a solid objer without hearing or actually touchiar it. This sense is possessed by sighted people, hut in a rudimentary form. Many people claim that they can feel the presence of an objecwhen they are moving about in a dart room and can often prevent a colli*, ion with some article of furniture With the blind, on the other banc this sense is highly developed. ]• has ofteii been observed by sighted people that, a blind man will be cross ing a street, and heading straigt for a stationary motor-car which ij emitting no sound whatever, bswhen a few paces from the car he will swerve and avoid a collision. This ability to detect external object* i* not due to any mysterious or super natural power, but has been mad, possible by the extraordinary develop ment of a sense of "pressure’’ which the blind, along with the sighted, possess. As the blind approach a solid object they positively feel ■ pressure on their necks and faces. It is net only the face as many think that receives this pressure, for objects to which the back is turned are oftes located by this means. The blind can, with experience, distinguish the relative sizes of objects. The stronger pressure coming from a large object such as a brick building will sometimes swallow up as it were, the feebler pressure from a thin por. standing by the street kerb, and whet crossing streets it is this fact that more often than not account* for collisions with posts. Where the pressures are coming from different quarters there is little danger of confusion, but the whole difficulty lies where the pressures are coming from one direction. The blind therefore are able to move about with safety and ease if they are capable of utilising ail the sense organs they possess. Those who are blind from birth normally acquire these “aids” as a part oftheir develop ment. Whether or not the blind who have lost their sight in after life succeed in getting about alone, depends upon the development of their existing nervous equipment sufficiently to enable them to take full advantage o! their possibilities. The whole question is -whether or not the nervous system is plastic so that the adjustments may be easily made. Those persons who lose their sight before 25 or 30 years of age, as a rule experience little difficulty ia making the requisite adjustments, hut in the case of those who go blind over 40 years of age it is seldom that they adapt themselves to their altered conditions. Blindness, with 6ome, is only one of many ailments or the result of some other Infirmity. Conse-

quently where this is the case there is little chance, of successfully getting about alone. The success of the blind in moving about unattended may be gathered from the fact that there are few instances on record of totally blind persons being run down by vehicles, though several of the pane ally-blind have met with such accidents. But in the case of the par tially-blind their uncertain sight has been insufficient to keep them out o. danger, while at the same time ft presence has prevented the development of the other senses on whit* l the totallv blind normally depend. N. PARKER.