SLICHEB 64 came the fashionable i*esort for all the celebrities of the time. She contributed to the "New Monthly Magazine," "Con- versations with Lord Byron"; wrote nu- merous novels, including "The Belle of a Season," and the "Victims of Society"; and acted as editor for several years of "Heath's Book of Beauty," the "Keep- sake," and the "Gems of Beauty." She died in Paris, June 4, 1849. BLICHER, STEEN STEENSEN (blich'er), a Danish poet and novelist, born in Viborg in 1782. His first work was a translation of "Ossian" (2 vols., 1807-1809), and his first original poems appeared in 1814, but attracted little no- tice. He quickly won a national reputa- tion with his novels, and in 1842 appeared his masterpiece of novel writing, "The Knitting Room," a collection of short stories in the Jutland dialect. He died in 1848. BLIGHIA (named after Captain Bligh), a genus of plants belonging to the order sapindaceie (soapworts). B. sapida is the ash leaved akee tree. Blighia is now considered only a synonym
- of cupania.
BLIGHT, a diseased state of culti- vated plants, especially cereals and grasses. BLIMBING, the Indian name of the fruit of averrhoa bilimbi, a small tree, family oxalidacese, called also cucumber tree, the fruit being acid and resembling a small cucumber. The carambola belongs to the same genus. BLIND, KARL (blint) , a Germaii author and revolutionist, born at Mann- heim, Sept. 4, 1826; studied law at Heidelberg. For his share in the risings in south Germany in 1848 he was sen- tenced to eight years' imprisonment, but while being taken to Mainz was liberated by the populace. After the reaction had again triumphed over the Continent, Blind found an asylum first in Belgium, and afterward in England, where he took an active part in Democratic propaganda. An enthusiastic advocate of German free- dom and unity, he promoted the Schles- wig-Holstein movement. As an author he has written on politics, history, and mythology, including lives of Ledru- Rolhn, Deak, Freiligrath. He died May oi, iyo7. BLIND, MATHILDE, a German-Eng- lish poet, born in Mannheim, March 21 1847; went to England in 1849, and won fame by her writings, "The Prophecy of ?oo.9^!]; .^""^ .^^''^' Poems" (London, 1881); "Life of George Eliot" (1883)- BLIND "Madame Roland" (1886) ; "The Heather on Fire," a tale (1886) ; "Ascent of Man" (1889); "Dramas in Miniature" (1892); "Songs and Sonnets" (1893), and "Birds of Passage" (1895). She died in Lon- don, Nov. 26, 1896. BLIND, THE, those who want, or are deficient in, the sense of sight. Blindness may vary in degree from the slightest impairment of vision to total loss of sight; it may also be temporary or permanent. It is caused by defect, dis- ease, or injury to the eye, to the optic nerve, or to that part of the brain con- nected with it. Old age is sometimes ac- companied with blindness, occasioned by the drying up of the humors of the eye, or by the opacity of the cornea, the crys- talline lens, etc. There are several causes which produce blindness from birth. As early as 1260 an asylum for the blind (L'hospice des Quinze-Vingts) was founded in Paris by St. Louis for the re- lief of the crusaders who lost their sight in Egypt and Syria; but the first institu- tion for the instruction of the blind was the idea of Valentin Hauy, brother of the celebrated mineralogist. In 1784 he opened an institution in which they were instructed not only in appropriate me- chanical employments, as spinning, knit- ting, making ropes or fringes, and work- ing in pasteboard, but also in music, in reading, writing, ciphering, geography, and the sciences. For instruction in read- ing he procured raised letters of metal; for writing he used particular writing cases, in which a frame, with wires to separate the lines, could be fastened upon the paper; for ciphering there were mov- able figures of metal, and ciphering boards in which the figures could be fixed ; for teaching geography maps were pi'epared upon which mountains, rivers, cities, and the boundaries of countries were indicated to the sense of touch in various ways, etc. Similar institutions were soon afterward founded in Amster- dam, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dres- den, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London, Vien- na, and in many cities of the United States. There are now comparatively few large cities that do not possess a school or institution of some kind for the blind. Various systems have been devised for the purpose of teaching the blind to read, some of which consist in the use of the ordinary Roman alphabet, with more or less modification, and some of which em- ploy types quite arbitrary in form. In all systems the characters rise above the sur- face of the paper so as to be felt by the fingers. The type adopted by Haiiy was the script or italic form of the Roman
