364 



THE LENS, BY PROFESSOR BABUCHIN. 



filled by a structureless or granular mass that was considered 

 to be a constant constituent of the lens. Now as the stella 

 passes through all the layers, fissures should in that case exist 

 corresponding to the number of the rays of this star, and 

 should penetrate, both upon the anterior and the posterior 

 surfaces of the lens, vertically inwards to the nucleus. Becker* 

 attributed peculiar importance, in regard to the physiological 

 functions of the lens, to these fissures, which he considered 

 to be filled during the life of the animal by a semi-fluid 



Fig. 373 A, 



Fig. 373 A. Anterior stella of the lens. 



homogeneous transparent substance. He believed that these 

 fissures communicated, by means of minute openings found 

 in their walls, with special canals which expanded between 

 the fibres of the crystalline lens (interfibrillar passages), so 

 that the contents of the stellate fissures could discharge 

 themselves into the canals, or vice versa, during the changes 

 which the lens underwent in the act of accommodation for 

 varying distances. Kolliker however stated, in his Mikro- 



* Archiv fur Ophthalmologie, 1863. 



