警惕：永远不要拿激光笔对着眼睛！

如果你曾经质疑过为什么你不能将激光指示器对着你或他人的眼睛，那么就让一个希腊的9岁男孩的遭遇成为你的警示吧：男孩反复盯着他正在把玩的绿色激光指示器，结果视网膜上被烧出一个洞!

And the damage may be permanent.

损害可能是永久性的。

The boy's parents took him to the ophthalmology clinic when he started complaining of difficulty seeing out of the left eye. His doctors assessed his visual acuity - he still had 20/20 vision in his right eye, but his left eye had dropped to 20/100.

当男孩开始向父母抱怨，他左眼视物困难时，父母立刻带他前往眼科诊所就医。医生检查了他的视力——右眼仍然有20/20水平的视力，但他的左眼视力水平已下降到20/100。

When the doctors examined the boy, they found a large hole in the macula - the central area of the retina, where light is focussed from the front of the eye. It's responsible for colour vision and visual acuity.

当医生检查这个男孩眼底时，他们在黄斑区发现了一个大洞。那里是视网膜的中央区域，光线在此处聚焦。它负责色觉和视敏度。

Macular holes are not uncommon in the elderly, so the effects are well known - they affect the centre of your vision, or what is right in front of your eyes. Not far from the hole, the doctors found two additional spots of further injury.

黄斑区病变在老年人中并不罕见，因此症状为大众所知——常常出现视力下降、眼前黑影或视物变形。。在离洞不远的地方，医生还发现了其他两处伤口。

Retinal injuries from laser pointers are actually shockingly common - so much so that there are diagnostic criteria for helping to determine when eye injuries have been caused by the devices.

激光指示器造成的视网膜损伤实际上非常普遍——因此有很多诊断标准可以帮助确定激光灼烧引起眼外伤的时间。

And it doesn't take long to cause damage, either: just one minute of exposure to a 5mW laser pointer caused significant damage to a 13-year-old boy's eyes, recorded in a 2012 case report.

实际上，激光也不需要很长时间就能造成实质性的损害：在2012年的一份案例报告中记录道，5mW激光指示器仅仅在一分钟之内就会对一名13岁男孩的眼睛造成严重损害。

His eyes healed, but another 13-year-old boy, according to a 2015 case report, was not so lucky. His brother had ordered a 50mW laser pointer from the internet, and shone it into the patient's eyes for one second - causing permanent eye damage.

根据2015年的病例报告，他的眼睛最终痊愈了，但是另一名13岁的男孩就没有那么幸运。13岁的小患者有一个兄弟，他从互联网上订购了一支50mW的激光指示器，并将其照射到患者的眼睛中一秒钟——造成了眼部永久性的损伤。

In the US, there's a 5mW power limit on laser pointers, regulated by the FDA. In Britainand Australia, regulations are even more stringent, limiting the devices to just 1mW. To use anything stronger, you need a permit.

在美国，由美国食品和药物管理局(FDA)监管的激光指示器功率限制为5mW。在英国和澳大利亚，法规更加严格，将设备限制在1mW。要想使用更功率更强的设备，你需要申请许可证。

But that doesn't stop consumers from purchasing higher powered laser pointers from the internet.

但这并不能阻止消费者从互联网上购买更高功率的激光指示器。

The doctors didn't specify the strength of the laser pointer that damaged the boy's eye, but it's possible they didn't know it; his father had purchased it from a street vendor, Fox News reports, and it could have been mislabelled.

医生没有说明烧伤男孩眼睛的激光笔的额定功率，或许他们可能也不知道;据福克斯新闻报道，他的父亲是从街头小贩那里购买的，而且可能贴错了标签。

The hole in the boy's macula, the doctors said, was too large to be treated with surgery, which is how it is often treated in elderly patients, and they recommended conservative management instead. But it seems like the damage has been done.

医生说，男孩黄斑上的洞太大，不能接受手术治疗，而这是对老年患者经常采用的治疗手段，所以他们只能建议保守治疗。但似乎损伤已经不可逆转。

"The patient's vision has remained unchanged during 18 months of follow-up," the doctors wrote.

“在18个月的随访期间，患者的视力未有好转。”他的医生写道。