Why Everyone Should Dissect A Cow's Eye

A Pretty Cow's eye

Such a beautiful innocent cow with an eye. It has no idea that when it dies it will be handed over to vicious anatomy students who will tear it, literally, inside out.

This is what I was doing Wednesday night. Taking apart a mournful little eyeball - except it was almost the size of my palm - while holding my breath and trying really hard not to run away screaming at the top of my lungs.

There was definitely some groaning and squealing involved in this cutting and slicing of nastiness. First we injected our cornea with saline to make it look like an eyeball again, which was great because it stared at us the rest of the time until, of course, we cut out the cornea and all that saline sort of gushed all over our fingers. Along with some other stuff that was black.

But, oh man, the very bestest part was sticking our finger through the pupil and pulling until the iris came out. Have you ever tried this? You should, if you haven't. Delightful experience. (Please note the depth of my sarcasm in the latter sentence.)

Next we found the lens which was this hard round pink thing. Very weird. After all this we were told we had to turn the eyeball all the way inside out. *whimper*

Okay, first of all, this is not easy. Second of all, this is terrifying. It didn't help that our scalpels hadn't been sharpened. We tugged and cajoled and ripped until it finally gave way and the inside was revealed.

Tapetum Lucidum

I found this weirdly gorgeous. That's what the inside of a cow eye looks like. It's called the tapetum and its what enables animals like the cow to see in the dark. Its also what gives animals such glowing, bright eyes at night when you shine a light at them.

Sorry if this is gross... I tried to find the non-grossest picture on Google. :) I just found this so fascinating! After all that disgusting black and gray and sludge there's a light at the end of the tunnel. You find this beautiful, unique color on the inside. And I love color. It just made the whole dissection worth it for me. I guess God really is in the details. :)

I'm not sure if I'll be quite as fascinated with the fetal pig that's next. I might be unconscious by the end of that one. Ha.

Hope everyone is having a lovely week of not dissecting things! Five Sentence Fiction coming soon...