EYES, A PRICELESS POSSESSION

Let's take a quick test. How many basic senses do we have at birth? Name them. Is it one.... two.... four? I'm sure we all agree the answer is FIVE. These five senses are SIGHT, HEARING, TASTE, TOUCH and SMELL.

If you were faced with sacrificing four of these five basic senses, which one would you keep? Most people would keep their sense of SIGHT. Yet on so many occasions, we treat this most priceless possession too lightly. The value of our sight cannot be measured.

The eye is like a camera. The eye too has a lens. The eye consists of the retina, iris, cornea and optic nerves. These parts of the human body, in an almost supernatural way, coordinate their activities to transmit impulses to the brain. These impulses provide vision, the miricle of color, perception and the ability to learn. Eighty percent of everything we learn, come to us through our sight and the use of our eyes.

It's common sense to take good care of your eyes. Still, we sometimes neglect them. There was an accident recently in which an employee lost the sight of one eye when a grinding wheel exploded. This employee wore a pair of safety goggles at the time of the accident, but unfortunately, they were on his forehead and not over his eyes. The ironic part of this story is that the injured person owned many valuable cameras. He protected each camera lens well with a lens cap, to prevent scratches. How sad that something that could be judged in dollars and cents was worth protecting, but sight was taken for granted.

Medical science today works near miracles, in so many different areas. Replacing vital organs such as the heart or lungs or kidneys. They can re-attach arms and legs that have been severed. We were given only two eyes and medical science with all it's knowledge, cannot replace them. Let's keep them and take care of them.