Braille, Louis
Louis (1806-1852), a French educator of the blind. He was blind almost from birth, but was educated at the Institute for the Blind at Paris. As a lad he developed wonderful proficiency in music. He illustrates the principle that a person deficient in one of the senses may become unusually proficient in the others. Young Louis developed remarkable delicacy of ear and touch. At twenty he was the most remarkable organist in France. He invented the system of writing with points. Braille, as his system is known, is now used almost entirely in institutions for the blind. Braille point has superseded the raised letter entirely for purposes of correspondence. The entire system is based on point pricks in paper. Forty-three letters and ten numerals are based on ten fundamental arrangements of from one to four point pricks in a square. A point prick in the upper left hand corner, and another immediately beneath in the lower left hand corner, B; four pricks, one in each corner, represent G, etc. See Blindness 2026 Editor's Note: Braille devised his system at fifteen, adapting a military code for reading messages at night without light. It was resisted by sighted teachers and not adopted by his own school until after his death — and then it conquered the world, adapted to nearly every language. Its use is now declining as audio replaces it, which advocates warn is costing blind children literacy itself. (Ed: BR 2026-06-25)
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Brain Fever
a term in common use for inflammation of the lining membranes of the brain, meningitis; or of the brain itself, cerebritis. These are generally found in conjunction, seldom separate, and are termed phrenitis or encephalitis. Often associated iated (a) with tuberculosis, or scrofula; sometimes (b) with gout, rheumatism, or syphilis; in the first instance generally in the case of children and delicate young females, in the others chiefly in adult males; very frequently, also, from injury, or as a consequence of previous diseases. Brain fever is characterized by violent headache, intolerance of light, excitement, extreme sensitiveness, hyperæmia, delirium, convulsions, and coma.
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Brainerd
a city of Minnesota, the county-seat of Crow Wing co. It is on the Northern Pacific and the Minnesota and International railroads, and on the Mississippi river. It is an important industrial community and has machine shops of the Northern Pacific railroad, lumber yards, cigar factories, flour mills, paper mills, etc. There is a court house, Y. M. C. A. building, a library, public park, and St. Joseph's Hospital. The city has a large export trade in lumber, grain, hay, furs, and iron. Pop. (1910) 8,526; 8,526: (1920) 9,591.
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Braintree
a town in Norfolk co., Mass.; on the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad; 10 miles S. of Boston. It contains the villages of South and East Braintree; has electric street railroads to the principal nearby towns and villages, and is principally engaged in granite quarrying, and the manufacture of tacks, shoes, wool, rubher goods, and fans. John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and other members of that family were born here. Pop. (1910) 8,066; (1910) 10,580.
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Brake
a contrivance for retarding or arresting motion by means of friction. In machinery it generally consists of a simple or compound lever, that may be pressed forcibly upon the periphery of a wheel, fixed upon a shaft or axis. See AIR BRAKE.
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Brama
a genus of spiny finned fishes belonging to Cuvier's family squamipennes, meaning scaly-finned fishes, now called chætodontidæ. It contains but one species, the brama raii, which is common in the Mediterranean. BRAMANTE D'URBINO (brä-man'té), (real name DONATO D'ANGELO), an Italian architect, born in 1444. Showing an early taste for drawing, he was brought up to the profession of a painter, but he quitted it to dedicate his talents to architecture, which he cultivated with uncommon success. He first designed and commenced in 1513, the erection of St. Peter's at Rome, carried on and finished by other architects after his death. Pope Julius II. made him superintendent of his buildings, and, under that pontiff, he formed the magnificent project of connecting the Belvidere Palace with the Vatican by means of two grand galleries carried across a valley. He built many churches, monasteries, and palaces at Rome, and in other Italian cities. He preferred the classic architecture of the Greeks, and was the instructor of Raphael in that art. Bramante painted portraits with ability, and he was skilled in music and poetry. He died in 1514.
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Bramatherium
a genus of antilopidæ, consisting of a gigantic species with four horns. It is allied to sivatherium, which also is four-horned. Both occur in the Upper Miocene, or Lower Pliocene beds of the Sewâlik Hills in India.
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Brambanan
a district of the province of Surakarta, Java, rich in remains of Hindu temples, of which there are six groups, with two apparently monastic buildings. The edifices are composed entirely of hewn stone. The largest is a cruciform temple, surrounded by five concentric squares, formed by rows of detached cells or shrines, embracing an area of 500 feet square. Several of these dagobas contain cross-legged figures of Buddha.
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Bramble
or BLACKBERRY (rubus fruticosus), a plant common in Great Britain and most parts of Europe, having prickly stems, which somewhat resemble those of the raspberry. The flowers do not appear till the summer is considerably advanced, continuing to be produced till the frosts of winter set in. The bramble is little cultivated in Great Britain. This being one of the most variable of British plants, its systematic arrangement has been a matter of great controversy. Baker enumerates 21 sub-species sub-species, of which most again pass into varieties. In the United States, where they are called blackberries, they are extensively cultivated for their fruit; and, of late, American kinds have been with advantage introduced into Great Britain. Species of rubus very similar to the common bramble, or varieties of it, abound in the northern parts of Asia, the Himalaya Mountains, and North America.
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Brambling
BRAMBLE FINCH, or MOUNTAIN FINCH, a bird of the family fringillidæ. It breeds in the more northern parts of Scandinavia; visiting Italy, Malta, Smyrna, etc., in its winter migrations. It has no song, its call note being a single monotonous chirp. It is rather larger than the chaffinch. The tail is forked, and its prevailing colors are black, white, and yellow.
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