Emmetropic eye – Normal eye with fully relaxed ciliary muscles in

which parallel rays are focussed on the retina.

Errors of Refraction in eye
1) Myopia or Short sight – defect where the person can see near
objects but not the distant objects.
Parallel rays from a distant object are brought to a focus in front
of the retina when ciliary muscles are relaxed.
Causes
• An elongated eyeball
• Increased power of the lens
Corrected using biconcave lens. This diverges the light rays
before entering the eye so that they are focussed on the retina.
2) Hypermetropia or Long sight – defect where the person can
see distant objects but not the near
objects
Here parallel rays from a distant object are brought to a point
behind the retina in a relaxed, unaccommodated eye.
Initially image can be brought to a focus by accommodation.
Due to the prolonged muscular effort the person gets headache,
eyeache, tiredness and discomfort in reading.
Causes
• A short eyeball
• weak lens system
Corrected using biconvex lens. This converges the rays partly
before they enter the eye so as to
focus exactly on the retina.
3) Astigmatism – due to irregular curvature of cornea or anterior
surface of lens.
Here all the rays from an object fail to focus in a single plane.
They focus at different points.
Classification

Regular Astigmatism
Simple Astigmatism -one plane is normal and the other plane is
either myopic or hypermetropic.
Compound Astigmatism – when both planes are hypermetropic or
myopic of different degrees.
Mixed Astigmatism – One plane is hypermetropic and the other is
myopic.

Irregular Astigmatism – Light rays refracts in different ways from

the same plane.
Corrected using cylindrical lens or contact lens.
Cataract – develops in old age (> 55 to 60 years)
– Lens becomes cloudy and opaque due to denaturation of lens
proteins.
So vision becomes blurred.

Treatment – Removal of lens and using a biconvex lens outside the

eye or removal and using intraocular lens

Acuity of vision – means sharpness of vision when the details of
an object are seen clearly.
It is the minimum distance between two points at which they can
be resolved as 2 separate points.
It is the reciprocal of the visual angle.
Visual angle is the angle subtended by the object at
the nodal point of the eye.
To distinguish 2 stimuli separately the visual angle should be a
minimum of 1 minute.
The diameter of the cone present in the fovea of retina is 1.5µ.
To distinguish 2 points separately the stimuli should stimulate at
least 2 cones.
For that the image should be at least 2µ apart.
Visual acuity depends on
•The illumination
•Time of exposure
•Brightness and contrast
•Physiological and pathological errors of refraction and
• the part of retina which is stimulated by light. (fovea has
maximum visual acuity)
For distant vision – tested with Snellen’s chart kept at a distance
of 6 metres.
Normal 6/6
For near vision – tested with Jaeger’s chart
Field of Vision
Is the part of the external world that can be seen by one
eye when the gaze is fixed at an object.
Field of vision is charted with the instrument called
perimeter.
Binocular vision
When both eyes are open the central portion of visual
field overlap each other which is called binocular visual
field.
In this Depth perception is possible (Stereopsis).
It is a function of the cerebral cortex and it depends on
the input from both eyes.
If an object is in binocular field of vision, two images are
formed which send impulses to cortex, where they fuse.
To fuse
Images should fall on corresponding points in the retina
and should be almost identical.

If this does not occur diplopia results.