I don't know if you think so too, but some force in the universe has always made me believe that what drove a pirate to wear an eye patch was precisely the lack of the eye or any other problem that prevented him from seeing normally.

If you are with me on this team, know that we are completely wrong. According to the Mental Floss website, the main reason pirates resorted to the accessory was to improve vision, specifically when switching between the inside and outside of the ship.

Image Source: Reproduction / Shutterstock

The explanation

Jim Sheedy, a visionary physician and director of the Institute for Visual Performance at Pacific University in Oregon, explained to the Wall Street Journal that our eyes adapt quickly when a dark environment transitions into a bright place. However, the opposite process can take up to 25 minutes as the eyes need to regenerate the photopigments.

And since the pirates were constantly moving around on the ship and alternating between the outside - with direct sunlight - and the inside - which was almost complete darkness - the eye patch served to keep one eye always on. adapted to dark environments. When a pirate needed to get inside the ship, one had to change the side of the eye patch and he could see much more easily.

Does it work?

Image Source: Reproduction / Shutterstock

Although there is no pirate left to tell us if this was the real purpose of the eye patch, it is a fact that adapting one eye to darkness is a working process. Even though historical sources are lacking, the special edition of MythBusters pirates found this explanation plausible.

In addition, at least one manual for military pilots points out that “even if light can hit one eye, the other will maintain its adaptation to darkness if protected from light. This information is useful because the pilot can preserve dark adaptation in one eye by simply closing it. ”

To reinforce the idea, even the American Aviation Federation (FAA) recommends that the "pilot should close one eye when exposed to light to preserve night vision to some extent." If all these arguments do not convince you, you only have to do a test. If it works, tell us in the comments.

* Originally posted on 11/15/2013.

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