Studies on the corneal and trabecular endothelium. I. Cement substance of the corneal endothelium.

THE corneal endothelium appears to be a very interesting tissue from the morphological as well as physiological point of view. It forms a limiting layer separating the corneal stroma from the aqueous humour, and is therefore said by many authors to have a great physiological importance in the regulation of the water-balance of the corneal stroma. Thus it appears to be of foremost importance for the normal function of the eye, and also continues at the periphery of the cornea as the endothelium of the trabecular meshwork, which seems to be of similar functional importance. In studying the functional anatomy of the angle of the anterior chamber, it is clear that the function of the trabecular endothelium cannot be understood without better knowledge of the corneal endothelium itself, both tissues being closely related ontogenetically. As the corneal endothelium is easier to study than the trabecular endothelium, this tissue is the subject of the present paper. The cytology of the corneal endothelium has been studied in many classical papers. One of the as yet unsolved problems is that of the nature of the intercellular substance, in view of the recent work of Jancso (1955) and McGovern (1955, 1956) on the vascular endothelium and the mesothelium of the peritoneal cavity.