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Sunday, July 04, 2010

Wellcome Library Item of the Month, June 2010: William Moon and Moon Type

"William Moon (1818-1894) may not be a household name now, but during his lifetime he was recognised as the creator of the first widely-used practical reading alphabet for the blind. Moon grew up in Kent, but by the time he was 22 he had become totally blind (the after-effects of contracting scarlet fever as a child) and moved to Brighton, to live with his sister and widowed mother. There, he set up his own day school for blind children and taught his pupils how to read using existing embossed reading codes. However, due to the boys finding it difficult to use these systems, in the 1840s Moon devised his own, which became known as Moon Type"

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