Present knowledge of calareous degeneration of the sclera is meager. Parsons1 and Greeff2 dismissed the subject with a few lines, Parsons stating that calcification of the sclera occurs sometimes in inflammatory processes and in old age, and that the scleral lamellae show an apparently normal histologic structure after removal of the lime salts. In rare cases, actual formation of bone may take place.
That this process was incorrectly diagnosed or entirely overlooked by some of the older authorities is shown by the following fact : Coccius,3 in his pathologic report of observations on the sclera in a case of glaucoma, remarked on the diffuse fatty infiltration present between the scleral fibers, and on the marked fatty degeneration which had affected the fibrillar interstitial substance and the connective tissue corpuscles of the sclera. Donders,4 in a paper published later in the same year, stated his opinion that