THE NEED for an in vitro method of cultivating lenses which would be suitable for performing quantitative metabolic studies over periods of twelve to twenty-four hours gave rise to the present investigation. The apparently limitless possibilities for experimentation on the lens, were it possible to maintain lenses in a normal physiologic state for a relatively indefinite period, stimulated us to perform several preliminary experiments, using different culture mediums, in an attempt to establish such conditions. In this paper a technic is described for culturing lenses, as well as observations on changes in carbohydrate metabolism—a sensitive index of damage—which lenses undergo when incubated in different mediums for periods of approximately a week.
Previous methods of culturing lenses have been based on a perfusion technic devised by de Haan.1 Bakker,2 for example, placed rabbit lenses in a shallow air-tight and water-tight glass chamber and then perfused the lenses with sterile