9/18 The Day Organized Education for the Visually Impaired First Began in the World

The day organized education for the visually impaired first began in the world. (Sugiyama Waichi, the highest-ranking official of the visually impaired self-governing organization, opened a private school to teach "Kanshinjutsu," a needle technique that could be inserted without pain, to the visually impaired. This school was officially recognized by the Shogunate on this day. This "Acupuncture Training Institute" was established more than 100 years earlier than the French institute for the blind, which was recognized as the world's first in 1784.)