 Squinting closely at the surface, he pressed down hard to drive the point in, and the awl glanced across the tough leather and stabbed him in one of his eyes.A local physician bound and patched the affected eye and even arranged for Braille to be met the next day in Paris by a surgeon, but no treatment could save the damaged organ.In agony, the young boy suffered for weeks as the wound became severely infected—an infection which then spread to his other eye, likely due to sympathetic ophthalmia.