On the Transparency of the Stroma in the Mammalian Cornea

This paper discusses the transparency of the normal mammalian cornea with particular reference to the scattering of light from the fibril structure in the stroma. It is shown theoretically that Maurice's fibril-lattice model would allow about 50Å rms isotropic fibril displacements from the ideal lattice positions to produce one percent scatter. This theoretically acceptable disorder seems to be in reasonable agreement with electron micrographic investigations. It is also shown that the scattered power is inversely proportional to the fifth power of the wavelength for this scattering model. Other scattering models are also discussed. These exhibit different wavelength dependence (1/λ
³
, 1/λ). Unfortunately no scatter versus wavelength measurements seem to have been reported in the literature.