OCR Text |
Show NEWWAY FOR THE BLIND TO READ Wonderful Discovery Enables Sightless to Read Ordinary Print by Sound. LONDON. Mar. 15. (Correspondence (Correspond-ence of The Associated Press ) At the Roentgen Ray society's February meeting Professor Fournier d'Albe demonstrated an instrument whereby with practice, blind persons are enabled enab-led to read ordinary print by sound The instrument depends upon an ap-plii ap-plii 'ion of selenium, and Is a development develop-ment of an instrument which Professor Profes-sor d'Albe used four years ago to enable en-able sightless persons to locate bright lights or brightly luminous patches by means of the ear and to discover shadows shad-ows intercepting the light. In this case, the light shining upon the selenium selen-ium arms of the machine caused certain cer-tain interruptions or changes In the electric current passing tlnoueh them, which were translated into sound by means of a telephonic contrivance. Th later apparatus Is a more delicate adaptation of the same idea. A small, revolving perforated disk is illuminated by a half-watt l;mp, and the Image of a line of luminous dots, lurnished by the revolving disk, is pro jected upon the type to be read. The light thus reflected from the type is passed to a set of selenium bridges connected by a telephone relay, and sound corresponding to the various letters of the type are carried to the receiver. Each letter of the printed matter, as it passes over the email aperture ap-erture in the slab gives a different sound effect from any other letter, and with practice a blind person can rer-ognize rer-ognize these distinctive sounds. This sound alphabet, of course, has to be learned, but with practice the line of typo can be moved across the aperture at the rate of several words a minute, and thp sense becomes intelligible to the reader, or hearer. |