Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Charts of Blind Natives: Case 1: Maupassant, Guy de Source: B.C. in Hand From Steinbrecher. Same in Gauquelin Vol. 6/558
Charts of Blind Natives: Case 1: Maupassant, Guy de Source: B.C. in Hand From Steinbrecher. Same in Gauquelin Vol. 6/558
His sexual appetite was prodigious; inevitably he contracted syphilis, possibly in 1874. By
1878 his eyesight was badly affected; he was subject to fits of melancholia and violent
migraines. Maupassant refused to acknowledge his syphilis and blamed his symptoms on
everything from overwork to the humid air of Normandy. In spite of his denial, he
attempted suicide twice.
On New Year's day in 1892 he visited his mother in Nice. She was shocked by his
appearance and begged him on her knees to not return to Canned but stay and rest. He
refused and returned to his cottage where his valet bled him and gave him chamomile tea.
In the morning he attempted to cut his throat with a paper knife, fearing that he was going
mad from the illness he so vehemently denied. On January 7th, he was taken to a luxurious
mental institution near Paris. His male servant was allowed to accompany him, but no
women visitors were allowed. Sex continued to obsess him during his final 18 months. In
his madness he became paranoid, accusing Francois of stealing his money. He would howl
like a dog, and lick the walls of his room. Aware of when his attacks were coming on, he
would ask for a strait jacket. In late June, after a violent convulsion, he fell into a coma and
died of insanity from syphilis on 7/07/1893.
Case 2: Plateau, Joseph
Source: Gauquelin Vol 2/3528
Belgian scientist, a physicist and author, inventor of Stroboscopic method for the study of
vibratory motion. He was an anatomy professor for the University of Ghent and was doing
research on the principle of vision and its effect upon simulated movement. In 1843, he lost
his sight, but continued his research with others. In 1883 he was responsible for the invention
of the Phenakisticope, a primitive apparatus that produced moving pictures from a series of
drawings. Plateau could be considered the inventor of animation.
Plateau died 9/15/1883, Ghent, Belgium.
Case 3: Blind 3073
Source: BJA, 5/1925
British sight impaired female who was myopic from childhood. At the age of 30, she lost the
sight in her right eye due to detachment of the retina. Her left eye showed incipient
cataract.
Case 4: Blind 3529
Source: BJA, 11/1924
British female who lost her eyesight due to illness. She was hospitalized with an illness from
May to September in 1902. She lost the sight in her left eye and developed problems with
her right eye in April 1903. After an operation failed in July 1903, she permanently lost her
sight.
Case 5: Blind 5742
Source: BJA, 4/1925
East Indian male blinded due to fever and eye soreness at nine months. He lost his eyesight
in July 1924.
Case 6: Amy Grant
Source: Stephen Przybylowski quotes B.C.
Eye Problem: See end of para
American country singer, well known in Christian music circles as she put out gospel
albums for a decade before crossing over to popular success with the 1991 platinum effort,
"Heart in Motion." As a gospel singer, she featured words of joy over smileyface melodies
such as her LP "House of Love," released August 1994.
The youngest of four kids of a prominent Nashville cancer specialist and his wife, Amy
grew up wanting to have a family, live on a farm and play guitar and sing. With a natural
talent, she had her first record contract at 15.
In 1982 she married Gary Chapman, also known in the Christian music genre. They had
three kids, Matthew, Millie and Sarah. Their marriage seemed heavenmade. Grant had
already recorded Chapman's song "Father's Eyes" when they met at a party in 1979. When
they wed, it was at the time that Grant's breakthrough Christian album "Age to Age" was
scaling the charts and Chapman often accompanied Grant on tours. It was sorry news when
rumors of a rift began to circulate in the '90s and their friends hoped that they would work
through it but the couple announced on 12/30/1998 that they had come to the end of their 16
year marriage. In the fall of 1999 she started seeing Vince Gill, another awardwinning
country singer, appearing with him at his annual charity golf tournament in Oklahoma
City. They married 3/10/2000, 4:30 PM in Nashville. Besides her three children, (one boy
and two girls,) he has a teen daughter by his first marriage.
On 6/12/1995, during a routine eye exam, she learned that she had a detached retina in her
right eye. She cancelled 17 concerts and had eye surgery three days later to repair and save
her vision.
Grant had a baby girl on 3/12/2001, her fourth child and the first with Vince Gill.
Case 7: Borgatti, Giuseppe
Source: B.C. in hand from Steinbrecher (3:00 PM Rome time)
Italian tenor opera singer and teacher, noted for his renditions of Wagner. He made a debut
at Castelfranco Veneto in 1893. In 1913, in the middle of a performance at La Scala, he
suddenly went blind and never recovered his sight.
Borgatti died 10/18/1950, Milan, Italy.
Case 8: Delius Frederick
Source: Leslie Russell in "Brief Biographies."
English composer whose works reflect the influence and color of the places in which he
lived, England, the American mountains and forests, the Atlantic ocean. He subtitled an
orchestral nocturne "Paris, The Song of a Great City," 1899. Traveling extensively while
young, he studied music at Leipzig Conservatory and finally settled in France. After
working eight years in Paris and a marriage, he moved with his wife to GrezsurLoin.
An onset of illness in 1922 led to paralysis and blindness; Delius continued to compose with
help from Eric Fenby. In England for a music festival, he was made Companion of Honor
by King George V in 1929.
Died 6/10/1934, Fontainebleau, France.
Case 9: Daumier, Honore
Source: Gauquelin Vol. 4/269
In 1877 he was diagnosed Blind. French artist, lithographer, caricaturist and painter who was
famed for his biting satire. He was imprisoned once for six months in 1832 after drawing a
cartoon that mocked King Louis Philippe. Daumier produced about 4,000 lithographs and
some 200 paintings. He attempted to paint but lacking a formal artistic education, accepted
his career of daily drawing.
Born the son of a struggling poet whose day jobs were glazier and picture framer, Daumier
missed out on a traditional art education. At 19 he apprenticed for a few months with a
lithographer. Shortly after he caught on as a caricaturist and courtroom artists with two
magazines.
His greatgreatgrandsons still embellish daily editorial pages and the Daumier estate still
holds the patent on "Jules Feiffer."
He did not receive major recognition until after his death in Valmondois, France on
2/11/1879.
Case 10: Cassatt, Mary Stevenson
Source: LMR quotes her dad's family record given in an article in Vogue 2/15/l954.
Biography: Nancy Mowll Mathews, "Mary Cassatt, A Life," Villard, 1994.
American diabetic female who contracted diabetes at the young age of seven and became
totally blind by age 24.
Case 13: John Milton
Source: Stephen Erlewine quotes Aubrey's Minutes of the Life of Mr. John Milton," as
found in "Milton's Complete Poems," edited by F.A. Patterson, "Born on the 9th of
December, half an hour after six in the morning." Aubrey's "Brief Lives" gives "Between six
and seven in the morning," in MNN.
Peter Levi, ""Eden Renewed: The Public and Private Life of John Milton," St. Martin's
Press.
British writer and poet who is best know for his "Paradise Lost," 1667. His work is generally
regarded as surpassed only by Shakespeare.
He was the son of a scrivener, one of six kids of whom three lived. He was a beautiful child
with a good education who continued on to Cambridge where he lived so chaste a life that
he was given the nickname of "lady." He lived at home from 16321638 when his mom died.
As a gentleman, he traveled for a year.
Puritanical and serious, he married 17yearold Mary in early 1643. She left him one month
later but returned in 1644. They had four kids, the first born in July 1646. One of the boys
died and after the fourth birth in May 1652, Mary died.
A tutor and writer, Milton was generally beset by money problems. He married his second
wife on 11/22/1656 and was widowed a second time when she died in childbirth 15 months
later. He married his third and last wife in February 1663; a young sensible girl, Elizabeth
Minshull, who made his last years comfortable.
Milton became more radical in his views as he aged, becoming the master of invective.
Losing his sight from his mid30s, probably from retinal detachment, by MarchApril 1652 he
was wholly blind and worked through secretaries. He adapted well to his blindness, but gout
was a torment. Milton spent his last nine years in a cottage (now a museum) and died on
11/08/1674, Chalfont St. Giles, England.