The Structure of the Cornea as Revealed by Polarized Light
Studies of corneal sections in polarized light indicate that there are about 100 lamellae in the cat cornea; the coefficient of fibre birefringence is 0.0030. No evidence was found of preferential orientation of fibre directions. Corneal disks examined by an immersion technique show that the cornea exhibits both form and intrinsic birefringence of positive sign with a micellar refractive index of 1.50-1.52. The values of both form and intrinsic birefringence in various fixatives can be explained on the basis of swelling, which is both inter- and intra-micellar. The micellar volume according to the Wiener relationships does not exceed 3 per cent.; possible causes of this are discussed.