The human eye is an amazing instrument. It is the bodys camera, capturing images of the world with striking clarity in a virtual instant. The eye and the typical camera share many of the same structural features. A camera needs an operator, a housing (box) to hold onto and to contain the working parts and film, an aperture to let the light in (preferably one that allows for different light conditions), a lens for focusing the image, and film for capturing the image. Then the film must be developed (or the digital images downloaded). The following description illustrates how the eye performs these same functions.
on the very back of the retina. The pigment helps prevent light from scattering in the back of the eye. (Some nocturnal animals have a reflective layer instead of pigment, called the tapetum lucidum, which increases their sensitivity to low light and makes their eyes shine when a bright light strikes them.) When light strikes a rod or cone cell, it passes the signal to a bipolar cell, which passes it on to the ganglion cells, which perform the first level of information processing. The axons of the ganglion cells also form the cables that make up the optic nerve, carrying visual information to the brain. (There are no rods and cones where the optic nerve leaves the eye; this is called the blind spot.) The retina is pressed flat against the inner wall of the eye by a thick, gel-like substance called vitreous humor, which fills the space behind the lens (posterior cavity).
Accessory Structures
There are accessory structures associated with the eye. The eye is protected by being located in the orbit of the skull. Eyelashes help prevent foreign matter from reaching the sensitive surface. The eyelids help protect the exposed anterior part of the eye. The eyelids have glands that produce lubricating secretions. Infection of the glands at the base of the eyelash produces a painful localized swelling called a sty. A thin membrane called the conjunctiva lines the inside of both eyelids and covers the exposed eye surface (except the cornea); when this membrane gets irritated, blood vessels beneath it become dilated, resulting in a condition called conjunctivitis (pinkeye). Tear (lacrimal) glands located on the upper lateral (outside) region of the eye provide secretions (tears) that lubricate the surface, remove debris, help prevent bacterial infection, and deliver oxygen and nutrients to the conjunctiva; blinking of the eyelids provides a wiping action across the surface that keeps the eye polished and distributes the tears. These tears then drain into the tear ducts in the lower inner corner of the eye, draining into the nasal cavity. Another gland, the lacrimal caruncle (the pinkish blob in the inner corner), produces thick secretions that sometimes accumulate during sleep (the sand from the sandman). Most vertebrate animals have eyes that are essentially the same as the human eye. Among invertebrates, there is a wide variety of eyes. Some have simple eyespots that do not form images, detecting only the presence of light. Others, like the cephalopod mollusks (octopus, squid), have a camera eye very similar to that of vertebrates. Perhaps the most unusual eye is the compound eye found in arthropods such as insects and crustaceans. These eyes actually consist of hundreds of individual eye units, called ommatidia (up to thirty thousand in dragonflies). Each ommatidium has its own lens and set of receptor and supporting cells; each forms its own tiny picture of only a small part of the visual field. The insects brain thus receives a mosaic of hundreds of individual images that it uses to make a somewhat grainy composite image of the entire visual field.