382 THE CORNEA, BY ALEXANDER ROLLETT. 



cell-plexus of the stellate corneal corpuscles may also be re- 

 garded as an artificial product. In fact, the cells of the cornea 

 may be glass-clear laminae of an elastic nature, with oval 

 elongated or irregularly excavated borders, and a simple or 

 rarely double nucleus. These cell laminse may resemble endo- 

 thelial cells ; and as the presence of flat nucleated cells has been 

 demonstrated (by Ranvier) * in the tendons, it may be urged 

 that an arrangement of flat cells, disposed side by side, plays a 

 more or less exclusive (?) role in the structure and functions of 

 connective tissue.f 



Our own researches into the nature of the corneal corpuscles 

 have led us to the conclusion that they cannot be regarded as 

 constituting such elastic laminae, in opposition to the older 

 view representing them as forming a plexus of radiating and 

 intercommunicating corpuscles. We shall now proceed to 

 place before the reader the results of the investigation of these 

 cells in the living tissue, j 



If a living cornea with a small margin of sclerotic be rapidly 

 excised, and examined under the microscope in aqueous humour, 

 it appears as perfectly homogeneous as the transparent, glass- 

 clear, fresh cornea ; the figures represented in fig. 379 only 

 appearing where there are depressions or folds (Engelmann). 



After a short time the migrating cells come into view, and 

 then the corneal corpuscles, which appear in the first instance 

 as dull stars || or as spindle-shaped bodies,^ in which neither 

 granules nor nuclei can be discerned. 



Sooner or later, however, small granules and nuclei, which 

 are for the most part elongated, become visible, and render the 



* Archives de Physiologic normale et pathologique. 



t Schweigger-Seidel, Ueber die Grundsubstanz und die Zellen der Horn- 

 haut des Auges, (On the matrix and cells of the cornea,) Sitzungsberichte 

 der K. Sdchsischen G-esellschqft der Wissenschaften. Math. phys. Classe, pp. 

 320, 323, and 328, 1869. 



I v. Recklinghausen, loc. cit., p. 171, Taf. ii., fig. 2. Klilme, Unter- 

 suchungen iiber das Protoplasma und die Contractilitat, pp. 123131. 

 Leipzig, 1864. Engelmann, loc. cit t , pp. 3, 4, et seq. 



Engelmann, loc. cit., p. 4. Strieker, loc. cit., p. 1. 



H v. Recklinghausen, loc. cit., p. 171. Engelmann, loc. cit., p. 5. 



IT Kiihne, loc. cit., pp. 124 and 125. 



