In the entrance hall of my hospital we have this nice walk-in eye model, thanks to the “Blinden- und Sehbehindertenverein Südbaden” (a society supporting blind and low-vision people). It’s visually appealing, and various eye diseases are depicted in gruesome detail. And it’s lively patronised by adults and children, like m

There’s one thing that is really funny, though (now comes the “twist” announced in my headline): you could say this eye suffers from “congenital age-related macular degeneration”* ;-). Why? Because the optical axis in this model doesn’t go through the macula as it should (ignoring angles kappa etc. for now), but right into the optic nerve (you might glean this from photo 3). I guess it was sort of appealing for the people who built this (I’ll have to find out) to have the light enter directly the optic nerve…

No, seriously, this will make a beautiful first impression when people come to our next open-door-day in a few weeks (which I, unfortunately, have to organise, again…).

*For readers not fluent in ophthalmology: This is my little joke… a contradictio in adjecto: the term “age-related” is usually applied to conditions in advanced age – the very opposite of congenital. Yes, yes, I agree, it’s not really that funny…