74 EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN EYE 



this disease there is considerable expansion of all the diameters 

 of the eyeball, and considerable widening of the ciliary 

 region, so that the ciliary processess become separated 

 farther than normally from the sides of the lens, and the 

 circumlental space is increased in width. At the same time 

 the antero-posterior diameter of the lens is diminished and 

 the lateral diameter increased. In one specimen which I 

 have the antero-posterior diameter of the lens measures 

 3.5 mm., the lateral 9 mm., and in another the antero- 

 posterior diameter is 4 mm. while the lateral is 10 mm. 



Investigations into the anatomy of the suspensory 

 ligament of the lens have shown that it is composed of 

 separate bundles of fibers, which run in different directions, 

 and to which specific names have been attached. The two 

 chief bundles are: The orbiculo-antero-capsular fibers, lying 

 in the valleys between the ciliary processes, which attach 

 the posterior non-plicated part of the ciliary body to the 

 anterior capsule of the lens; and the cilio-postero-capsular 

 fibers, passing between the bundles of orbiculo-antero- 

 capsular fibers, which attach the anterior part of the ciliary 

 processes to the posterior capsule of the lens. A third set 

 of fibers— the equatorial— attaches the center of the ciliary 

 body to the side of the lens capsule. 



To understand how these different bundles of fibers of 

 the suspensory ligament are developed, it is necessary to 

 examine the relations which the ciliary body, or the part 

 of the eye which ultimately becomes the ciliary body, bears 

 to the side of the lens at different periods of fetal life. For 

 some time the two structures lie in contact, and it is while 

 they are in contact that adhesions form between them, 

 which ultimately develop into the fibers of the suspensory 

 ligament. At an early stage of fetal life, before the iris and 

 ciliary processes have commenced to form, the part of the 



