374 THE CORNEA, BY ALEXANDER ROLLETT. 



no further elucidation (fig 377). It is less easy to indicate the 

 nature of those presented by the proper tissue of the cornea. 



If we regard its features as they appear in a section made 

 from an eye hardened in Muller's fluid, and stained with car- 

 mine (fig. 377, b c), it may be said to possess a fasciculated or 

 banded structure. The substance forming the matrix appears 

 to be divided, though very irregularly, into striae (lamellae, 

 Bowman's lamellae, secondary lamellae of Henle),* which run 

 longitudinally in the direction of the lines of section of the 

 surfaces of the cornea, the division being occasioned by elon- 

 gated interspersed bodies or corpuscles running in the same 

 direction as the striae, which are sometimes broad, and are 

 sometimes so attenuated as to appear like simple lines. As the 

 broader parts become narrower, they are continuous with the 

 striae, or are gradually lost in the matrix. The dilatations are 

 either completely occupied by elongated bodies (corneal cor- 

 puscles of Toynbee and Virchow), which are darker than the 

 matrix, and more strongly tinted than it, or these corpuscles 

 are separated on one or both sides from the matrix, and are 

 smaller than the cavity in which they are enclosed. Near the 

 outer surface (fig. 377), but at a certain distance from the 

 superficial epithelium, these fusiform markings succeed each 

 other more quickly than in other parts of the section, and 

 between this richly corpusculated layer and the epithelium 

 is a band of the matrix which is broader than any of the 

 rest (lamina elastica anterior of Bowman, anterior basement 

 membrane of Henle),f (fig. 377, 6 6 1 ). In its broad, uniform 

 aspect it resembles the membrane of Descemet, but is always 

 thicker than this, and never so sharply defined. Its contour 

 line is also never so sharply defined towards the external, as 

 the membrane of Descemet is towards the internal epithelium. 

 The internal contour line of this layer is also less sharply 

 defined when it is continuous with the matrix in the bridges 

 formed by the matrix between the above-mentioned closely 

 compressed corpuscles. This feature is very well marked in 

 sections carried through the centre of the human cornea. A 



* Loc. cit.j p. 592. 

 t Loc. cit., p. 605. 



