Braille: what is it and why is it needed in the pharmaceutical packaging?

First, a little history. Braille was developed in 1824 by Louis Braille, the son of a shoemaker. When he was three years old, he played in his father’s workshop and accidentally hurt the eye with an awl. Infection spread rapidly in both eyes, and the boy became blind. At age 11, Louis was sent to a school for the blind, and at 15 – Louis became interested in “night letters” by Valentine Haüy, that at the time was used by the military to reports. This font consists of raised dots and printed one letter replaced with 8 points, which stood in two rows. Louis Braille has simplified the text, reducing the number of each one point and so each letter has become composed of 6 raised dots. So it was easier to read the text for Louis by one finger. So he created a combination of points, not only letters but also music, and punctuation, and numbers. The genius of Louis Braille is still in the fact that he created the font for different languages ​​in the world, whose foundation is not based on the Latin alphabet.
Unfortunately, outside of France, this invention came only in 1854, and the Braille system is gaining recognition only after his death.
Nowadays blind people have an opportunity to write and read by Braille. Apply a font from the reverse side of the sheet from right to left and read from the front side – left to right. A single letter is composed of six pixels that sit in two columns and three rows. The height of the convex point is 0.5 mm, that is sufficient to detect the touch point. The diameter of the point – 1.2 mm. The distance between points – 2.5 mm, the distance between characters – 2.3 mm horizontally and 3.8 mm vertically. Using traditional (six-point) Braille, we can write 26=64 different symbols: 63 informative and one space. In the extended (vosmitochechnom) Braille – 28=256 characters: 255 informative and one space. To write Braille characters used the device and lead, and therefore can not be written to make bold or italic. To indicate the uppercase and lowercase letters special characters are put before the desired letter. To change the face (bold, medium bold, italic) text when writing the top and bottom of the index, while writing mathematical root before and after the text put special characters: one character is placed at the beginning of the text, the other – at the end.
On the Braille reading all blind and visually impaired people in the world. And to facilitate their life now there are keyboards, Braille medal, and pharmaceutical companies produce their products in a package with the information printed on it in Braille. And in 2010, it became mandatory for the Ukrainian pharmaceutical companies.