The Effect of Replantation, Lens Removal, and Optic Nerve Section of the Eye of the Salamander (Triturus Viridescens) *

In 1885 Bradford replaced the atrophied eye of a 35-year-old sailor with the eyeball of a rabbit and reported a good cosmetic result without return of vision. Two years later May attempted, without success, to duplicate this result and conduded that the whole eyeball was too large a mass to transplant with the hope of retaining vitality in all of its parts. Gradually work turned from man to the lower animals, particularly to the amphibia. In 1924 Przibram and Koppanyi transplanted salamander eyes and reported evidence of return of vision. Koppanyi reported similar results with rats. However, subsequent investigations have tended to indicate that animals higher than amphibia do not show return of vision following transplantation of the eyeball. In partial confirmation of these observations Stone and Ussher, in 1927, demonstrated return of vision following replantation or transplantation of eyes in larvae of Amblystoma punctatum and in adults of Triturus yvidescens. Similar studies by Stone and Cole, in 1931, on Amblystoma punctatum, larvae and adults, showed partial retinal degeneration in larvae and complete degeneration with subsequent regeneration in adults after replantation or transplantation. Stone, Zaur, and Farthing in 1934 regrafted the same adult Triturus eye three times and showed reduction of the ganglion cell layer of the retina after each operation. Stone, as well as others, has demonstrated an intimate relationship between the lens and the bulb. They have shown that the lens can develop from the dorsal part of the iris or from pieces of iris transplanted to other regions in the bulb. In order to answer a few