THE EYE:
INSIDE AND OUT
Looking straight at the eye.
This is Dr. Steven Andrew Davis, Speaking of Health.
A lot of change is going on around the human eye. We can implant lenses after removing cataracts; we can use LASIK to improve vision; we can fix retinal holes with lasers. Yes, the technology changes, but the eye is still – the eye. How much do you know about it?
For starters, there’s the cornea, the transparent covering over the middle of the eye. Besides protecting the eye’s interior, the cornea is also part of the eye’s focusing system. Outside there’s also the sclera; the eye’s tough, white protective coat.
We can look at yet other parts of the eye in terms of what they do. Light is admitted into the eye’s interior by way of an iris that opens and closes automatically. The iris – the colored membrane that makes blue or brown or green.
Suspended behind the iris is the lens, a translucent structure which bends light rays, and focuses them onto the back of the eye, the portion known as the retina. The retina itself is a sophisticated network of organs, puts together the visual signals and sends them through the optic nerve to the brain.
Perhaps less well known than these structures are the fluid portions of the eye. Toward the front of the eye is a watery liquid known as the aqueous. Behind the lens is a transparent soft gelatinous material called the vitreous body.
These structures plus a few more are part of the dozen main
features of the eye’s anatomy.
They’re each so important that if anything goes seriously wrong
with any of them, the visual system we so often take for granted will
fail. Speaking of Health, I’m Dr.
Steven Andrew Davis for CBS News.
E-Mail
drdavis@davishealth.com
Dr. Steve Davis
7810 Louis Pasteur #200
210/614-3355
