RECENTLY I had under observation 2 patients with bilateral conical cornea associated with mongolism, a man aged 22 and a woman aged 29; in the latter the conical cornea was complicated with cataract, commonly noted in older persons with mongolism. A perusal of the literature revealed as ocular symptoms of mongolism only nystagmus, convergent strabismus and blepharitis in some cases, in addition to the almost constant presence of the oblique palpebral fissure, with slanting of the lids up and temporalward and the epicanthus. A search of textbooks for mention of conical cornea associated with mongolism was futile; even such books as Tassman's,1 when discussing ocular disturbances in conjunction with general systemic disease, failed to mention the occurrence of keratoconus. Conical cornea and mongolism are both anomalies, the nature of which is still a moot question.
Recognition of conical cornea is usually attributed to the observation of Taylor (1766); but