Lorm, Hieronymus

Born as Heinrich Landesmann in Mokulov, south Moravia. Deafened at age 16, continuing his education through reading and lipreading. Working as a journalist, he became involved with the German political unrest of the 1840s, and joined the anti-Metternich activists. To avoid police persecution, he adopted the pseudonym of Hieronymus Lorm, and kept that name for himself even after the police discovered his real identity and he was forced to flee to Germany. After Metternich's fall in 1848, Lorm settled near Vienna, Austria, and worked as editor of the Wiener Zeitung newspaper. Progressive eyesight difficulties since his youth became total blindness in 1882. Inventor of a new touch alphabet to facilitate deaf-blind communication, which spread around the world. Returned to Moravia in 1892; wrote a philosophical work, Unjustified Optimism; died at Brno.