I’m blind, but don’t assume I’m a super-sensor | Ian Macrae

A German gynaecologist believes blind people are better at breast examinations because their sense of touch is superior. I’m not convinced

There are two jokes among the sighted members of my immediate family. One usually takes place on holiday when they will comment on how loudly the crickets are chirping and then look to me for confirmation. This is always met with my customary blank look; I can’t hear a thing. The other is when, at home, they’ve spent ages trying to find something, only for me to go and put my hand straight on it. At which point the cry goes up, “If you want to find something, ask the blind man.”

There’s long been a notion that if you lose one sense, your others will sharpen to compensate. So if, like me, you’re blind, the idea is that you might find you have exceptional hearing, or extraordinary tastebuds. This notion was in the news again today, when the Times reported that a group of blind women in Germany, under a gynaecologist called Frank Hoffmann, have been trained to give breast examinations. Apparently, while the average woman can feel a tumour of between one and two centimetres, a trained blind person is able to detect a tumour much smaller – just 6mm to 8mm.

Related: Experience: I taught myself to see

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