THE EYE has been called the window to the soul,

and while it often conveys emotion, there is more to that twinkle in the eye than can be seen from the surface. The eye, although a small structure, is both intricately complex and amazingly simple.

Superficially it is simply a pair of lenses, the cornea and the natural crystalline lens, that focus an image onto the film of the eye or retina. But as you look closer, a complex and beautiful design emerges. The cornea, a living tissue, is able to remain translucent without having any blood vessels. It receives all it's nourishment from the fluid around it.

The natural crystalline lens, also a living tissue is able to flex and focus light at both near and far. As we get older it is this lens that slowly changes to become brown and inflexible becoming a cataract. The film of the eye or retina is an amazing tissue able to absorb an array of light and turn it into signals that are transmitted to our brain. An amazing amount of energy is needed for this. In fact, the eye is one of the most metabolically active tissues in the body.

This large demand for energy requires a large amount of blood to bring nutrients, remove waste, and work as a sink to remove the heat created during this process. This is all accomplished by a thick vascular structure called the choroid that is behind the retina. The images, now absorbed and processed by the retina, are then transmitted by the optic nerve to the brain (occipital cortex) were they becomes the images you and I know.

The optic nerve contains 1.2 million nerves which travels approximately 40-50 mm from the eye to the brain. Glaucoma occurs when this nerve slowly starts to die. These individual parts intricately knitted together are focused, and directed by a group of muscles coordinated in concert with your inner ear or vestibular system allowing you to maintain focus and alignment during movement. These pages are designed to help you understand a few of the surgeries that are used when the intricate system above fails because of age or trauma.