Blindness in Japan

thumb|A photograph of a typical Meiji-era anma thumb|A blind practitioner and a woman. As well as musicians, the anma practitioners were the popular occupation of the blind till the establishment of deaf and blind institutes opened in the 1870s, which granted them wider fields of employment. Anma () is a practice of traditional Japanese massage; the word also refers to practitioners of that art. Modern shiatsu is largely derived from anma.