Iris (anatomy) - Conjunctivitis or "red Eye"

Conjunctivitis or "red Eye"

When photographed with a flash, the iris constricts but not fast enough to avoid the red-eye effect. This represents reflection of light from the back of the eye, and is closely related to the term red reflex, used by ophthalmologists and optometrists in describing appearances on fundal examination.

When used as a descriptive term in medicine, the meaning of red eye is quite different, and indicates that the bulbar conjunctiva is reddened due to dilatation of superficial blood vessels. Leaving aside rarities, it indicates surface infection (conjunctivitis), intraocular inflammation (e.g., iridocyclitis) or high intraocular pressure (acute glaucoma or occasionally severe, untreated chronic glaucoma). This use of "red eye" implies disease. The term is therefore not used in medicine for ocular albinism, in which the eye is otherwise healthy despite an obviously red pupil and a translucent pinkish iris due to reflected light from the fundus. "Red eye" is used more loosely in veterinary practice, where investigation of eye diseases can be difficult, but even so albinotic breeds>are easily recognised and are usually described as having "pink eye" rather than "red eye".

Read more about this topic:  Iris (anatomy)

Famous quotes containing the words red and/or eye:

    And the truth wailing there like a red babe.
    Richard Eberhart (b. 1904)

    We have no prairies
    To slice a big sun at evening—
    Everywhere the eye concedes to
    Encroaching horizon,
    Is wooed into the cyclops’ eye
    Of a tarn.
    Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)