In recent years ophthalmologists have been increasingly interested in surgical procedures designed to improve the cosmetic appearance of the face and orbit among patients who have undergone enucleation of an eye. These surgical procedures have been concerned either with the implantation of some material into the orbit as a substitute for the eye that was enucleated or with the insertion of some substance into the scleral envelope following the evisceration of the contents of the eye. In either case the implant served as a base over which a prosthesis could be fitted, the prosthesis having more motion on ocular rotation than was possible without such an implant.
Since the publication of Mules' original report,1 in 1885, many modifications of the evisceration procedure have been described.* The list of implant materials used in conjunction with evisceration has included such diverse substances as silver, gold, lead, aluminum, paraffin, cartilage, preserved tendon,