You get more information about the world through your eyes than all the other senses combined. Yet, vital as it is, you tend to take your vision for granted because most of the action takes place behind the scenes.

What do you really know about your eyes and how you ?see??

Why do you have two eyes instead of one or three?

How do you see colors?

Why must the two eyes work together?

What can a cataract do to your sight?

Are your ?sunglasses? doing you more harm than good?

How do you know if your toddler or child has good vision?

You will find all these answers at

You probably have less information about your vision than you do about vitamins, angioplasty, or diets. If you are the average person, you worry more about your teeth than about your eyes, probably because toothaches can be painful and teeth can fall out.

Well, poor vision doesn't ordinarily hurt, although it may be disguised as a headache, fatigue or avoidance of near tasks (the child who ?hates? to read); and eyes rarely fall out.

Most parents will anxiously drag a protesting child to the dentist twice a year to check for cavities, poor bite, protruding teeth, etc.

But these same parents are not consciously aware that neglecting a Childs vision may lead to graver consequences than an impacted tooth ? namely, poor schoolwork, limited job choices later in life, or even blindness.

Consider this quote: ?The demands upon our eyes in our days have greatly increased over those made by our ancestors. The demands upon school children's eyes have been excessively increased in the last years.?

Does this sound appropriate?

Dr. St. John Roose, Professor of Diseases of the Eye and Ear, New York Medical School and Hospital, wrote it in 1894, a century ago.

It was written before electric lighting made reading for many hours into the night a general practice, before television and movies, before automobiles, before fifteen years of schooling was common, before computer screens populated offices and homes, before the era of technological miniaturization and millimicron tolerances. All these activities are dependent on good vision.

Is extreme sharpness of sight necessary to milk a cow?

Do you need binocular vision to stomp on grapes to make wine?

Does a crossed or a ?lazy? eye prevent you from planting corn, feeding livestock, shoveling manure?

Undoubtedly, modern civilization puts demands on our eyes and visual system for which they we not naturally designed. There is not too much we can do about the way our modern technological society is run.

Modern civilization is here and we are stuck with it for better or for worse. But, we must carefully watch the abuse our eyes are taking in the process!

Small deficiencies in clarity, differences in the way the two eyes see, poor focusing ability, or lack of good stereoscopic vision many not matter much in a slow agrarian society.

They will however, play havoc with an individual's effort to manage with the contemporary world of school, occupation, sports etc. So please learn how to Protect Your Eyesight.