To Table of Contents employers and government are concerned . Knowing a little about our history can be valuable , too , knowing about some of the many successes of blind people can help our own self-esteem and to allay fear and deeply held convictions that a blind person cannot contribute to the work force .
Dr . Jacob Bolotin attended the Illinois School for the Blind in the late 19th century and went on to become the world ' s first licensed , totally blind physician .
Sabriye Tenberken was totally blind , she traveled , often alone , all over Tibet to challenge centuries of treating blind Tibetans as less than human , of denying them education , work , respect , or a role in their community .
There have been thinkers and doers like James Holman , John Metcalf , Blaise Francoise , and Nicholas Bacon .
Holman was a totally blind and solo traveler of the early 1800s , before Braille , canes , and guide dogs . When journeying across the steppes of Greater Russia to Siberia , he was so scrupulously observant that he was arrested by the Czar ' s police , charged with being a spy , taken to the borders of Austria , and expelled .
In the mid 1700s , John Metcalf , totally blind from childhood , was a successful road and bridge builder ; a racehorse rider ; bare-knuckle fighter ; card shark ; stagecoach driver ; and ironically , occasionally a guide to sighted tourists of the local countryside .
Blaise Francoise was blinded during military service in the mid 1600s , just before he was to be promoted to the rank of field marshal . But he then wrote the definitive work on fortifications , and published other scientific works , including An Historical and Geographical Account of the River of the Amazons which included a chart that he drew after going blind .
Dr . Nicholas Bacon was blinded in childhood by a bow-and-arrow accident , but he obtained first place among his fellow students , got his law degree at Brussels , and became a blind lawyer of eighteenthcentury France , despite ridicule of friends and professors .
Bernard Morin was a blind mathematician in the 1960s who showed how a sphere could be turned inside out .
Geerat Vermeij was a blind biologist who delineated many new species of mollusk , based on tiny variations in the shapes and contours of their shells .
Lisa Fittipaldi was a nurse and CPA who lost her sight , went into deep depression for two years , and took to her bed . But when her exasperated husband threw a set of watercolors at her and demanded that she get up , she used art to give herself mobility and freedom . She says : " People have a lot of misconceptions about being blind . There is life after blindness . First you have to learn alternative skills . And there ’ s rehabilitation .” Ms . Fittipaldi is hailed internationally as the only blind realist painter .
Michael May was blinded at 3 , he went on to hold the world speed record for blind downhill skiers , to be a CIA analyst , and an assistive technology entrepreneur .
Henry Grunwald , the former editor in chief of Time , Inc ., author of One Man ' s America and once the U . S . ambassador to Austria , went one day to pour a glass of water and totally missed the glass . Was it time for a new prescription for his eyeglasses ? No . He was in the early stages of macular degeneration . He gathered all manner of information regarding the history of the eye , ranging from light-sensitive primitive organisms to the latest surgical wizardry . Along the way , he also learned that unknowns like Henry James , James Thurber , Jorge Luis Borges , Michelangelo , and Monet all suffered from a similar loss of sight .
And there are Louis Braille , Jose Feliciano , Helen Keller , Ray Charles , Erroll Garner ,