In my paper on iridencleisis as an operation in glaucoma, published in the December, 1930, issue of the Archives,1 I said that I had abandoned anterior sclerectomy in spite of its giving "an immediate sometime brutal fall of tension." I gave it up not only on account of the relatively frequent late infections, but also because in many cases after several years the defect in the sclera may be completely obliterated by solid and impermeable scar tissue. The tension is then often raised again, and not lowered by miotics.
After anterior sclerectomy and after iridencleisis in rabbits the scar tissue never causes a permanent subconjunctival fistula and accordingly cannot be used in this study; nor can the scars be studied that follow the same operation in human beings with glaucoma absolutum dolorosum, in whom the eye must be enucleated later on account of recurring pain.
The histologic process