The structure of cornea

Abstract

The anatomy and physiology of cornea has been described in reviews (Maurice, 1969; Davson, 1980). We are primarily concerned with the structure of the stroma of cornea. There are two levels of organization in the stroma: the collagen fibrils and the lamellae. Each lamella contains an array of collagen fibrils which appear as long thin cylinders in electron micrographs. The lamellae are parallel to the cornea surface and are at right angles to the light direction. Adjacent lamellae are approximately at right angles to each other. There are many lamellae (about 200) in the thickness of the stroma so that the different lamellae have on the average all possible orientations.