[Regeneration of the corneal endothelium in the rabbit--preliminary trials--I].

It has been demonstrated in a long-term experiment that the corneal endothelium of the rabbit is capable of repairing severe mechanical lesions several times. The more severe the lesion, the longer it takes to heal. The endothelium "broke down" for the first time after the sixth endothelial lesion was inflicted and so on after the tenth, eleventh and twelfth endothelial lesion. The regeneration time was prolonged considerably. Sometimes a "restitutio ad integrum" occurs and the cornea clarifies; sometimes one sees a retrocorneal membrane, which can also lead to clarification of the cornea. Plastic platelets implanted in addition (PVAL or HEMA copolymers) do not influence the time required for regeneration of the endothelium. In other tests these plastics proved to be nontoxic to the endothelium.