But there was also a scientific reason to hope. Around five years ago, says The Scientist, “[c]onventional wisdom at that time held that healthy eyes don’t harbor much microbial life—tears and blinking tend to clear away foreign objects, including bacteria.”
As it turns out, no. There's all sorts of stuff crawling on your eyeball. Recent research showed, says The Scientist, “that about a dozen bacterial genera dominated the eye’s conjunctiva, a third of which could not be classified. On the corneal surface, the researchers found a slightly different community. Again, about a dozen genera dominated. And everywhere they’ve looked, the researchers have found more than just bacteria.”
Bacteria, viruses and phages abound. Oh, one more thing, says The Scientist: “Researchers believe contact lenses make it easier for pathogens to colonize the surface of the eye by giving the bacteria something to adhere to.”
Sorry, germophobes.
source: smithsonian.com