Many aspects of the anatomy and histology of the normal trabecular meshwork are comparatively well known from light microscopy. Unsolved problems exist, however, such as the exact structure of the outermost layer of the meshwork and the existence of extracellular material in the intertrabecular spaces. This preliminary report considers these two problems, and indicates the potentialities of electron microscopy for assessing the detailed structure and topography of the trabecular meshwork.
Material and Methods
The material used in this investigation consists of three human and four monkey eyes. The human eyes were enucleated because of malignant melanoma of the posterior pole. In no cases were there any clinical signs of impaired outflow. All human material was fixed within 1-2 minutes after enucleation, and the monkey eyes were fixed in vivo before enucleation. The fixation procedure was the same, which is routinely used for electron microscopy. Sectioning was performed on a Porter-Blum