I see all kinds of people wearing glasses, men, women, young, old, people of all ethnicity’s and nationalities. So I wonder, are eye problems the most common in the world?
Well, among diseases, the most common is arguably tooth decay, though that’s not likely to kill you.
The organ that is mostly likely to stop working properly as you age… well… several possibilities jump to mind. I’d suggest you narrow your scope a little, deciding if you want to discuss organs that will simply wear out with time versus organs that are particularly vulnerable to environmental damage.
Good thing about eyes: you have 2. A backup always helps.
Among sensory organs, I’d argue your ears are generally the more vulnerable, but I don’t have a cite.
Perhaps you get this impression because eye correction is so prominent? I’m sure that as many people have dental work as have vision correction. Many prevalent metabolic and hormonal problems are invisible, such a diabetes and thyroid disease. High blood pressure. Atherosclerosis. Early osteoporosis. And what about skin problems? Probably everyone in the world has some degree of acne/dermatitis/eczema somewhere on their body–not to mention scars.
As my Psyc proff once said, “You try making a precision optical instrument out of meat.”
Yes, exactly. I have to appologize for the OP being kind of vauge, I was tired when I typed it and therefore didn’t put much effort into typing the question.
Good points. I have more to say, but it’ll have to wait till tomorrow.
It’s not even meat, it’s more jelly and string. Pretty impressive, really.
OK, I’ll try to be clearer. What I was trying to ask is if eyes are the organs that are prone to have the most things go wrong with them? You have people who are nearsighted, far-sighted, have stigmatism’s, get cataracts, need reading glasses as they get older, etc… You have people who were born with vision problems and people who get them later on. There are lots of people with glasses, contacts, and who have had corrective surgery.
Granted, most other organs that have problems are either internal or covered by cloths, so you don’t always see if there’s anything wrong, and there are tiny hearing aids like miracle ear so you might not notice any of those either. But eye problems do seem to be the most noticeable and prominent. I’ve noticed more people with glasses than people with hearing aids, braces, pace makers, oxygen tanks, casts, etc…
So I was just wondering if they eyes were the organs that are the most fragile and prone to genetic defects, deterioration’s, etc…
Okay. I have just, this last Spring, read through the whole Merck Manual. My official opinion, given this background, is that eyes are one of the least troublesome organs. It was the kidneys, the skin, and the digestive tract that had things going wrong all-stinking-over the place.
Eyes the most fragile organ?
Balls.
Thank you.
Well, what would you expect when you run a continuous stream of septic mud through an organ. That reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Wag The Dog: “It’s like a plumber: if you do it OK, nobody notices, if you fuck up, it gets full of shit.”
Ugh.
Eyes, for being as terribly exposed and fragile as they are, work suprisingly well, and for much furhter past warranty than we have any right to expect them to be, especially for an organ that is so (for vertebrates) ass-backward designed to begin with.
Stranger
I would have thought that the brain is the most fragile organ.
I guess it depends on what you mean by “fragile”. If you’re just talking linear acceleration, John Stapp underwent 46G of acceleration and the only injury (temporary) was to his eyes. But I recall the brain is easily damaged by rotational acceleration.
Your brain is well protected.
Well, unless you get shot through the eye.