Other
Scientific paper
Oct 1965
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1965natur.208..292m&link_type=abstract
Nature, Volume 208, Issue 5007, pp. 292-293 (1965).
Other
1
Scientific paper
MUCH remains unknown about the mechanism whereby the cornea maintains its shape, thickness, and transparency. Maurice1 points out that the observed negative water pressure inside the cornea and the positive pressure in the aqueous humor and tears bathing the cornea should lead to continuous swelling and, therefore, to corneal cloudiness. Some process, yet unknown, maintains the in vivo cornea at constant thickness and transparency. Mishima and Maurice2 showed that whatever process operates to maintain constant corneal thickness, the process can be disturbed by closing the eyes for an hour or more. They showed that the rabbit cornea thinned by four per cent over a period of two hours after the eye was opened. The thinning was attributed to evaporation of solvent (water) from the tears to produce a hypertonic tear film which withdrew water from the cornea by an osmotic effect. Conversely, when the eye was closed and thus bathed in isotonic tears, the cornea swelled. They considered the other two environmental factors which change when the eye is closed, namely temperature and oxygen tension, to be ineffective in changing thickness. The corneal temperature of the closed eye is about 4° C above that of the open eye. The oxygen tension of the epithelial surface of the closed eye must be about 50 mm mercury (the average between venous and arterial blood) whereas the open eye in air is exposed to 155 mm mercury oxygen tension.
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