Corneal Radius in Primary Acute Glaucoma

EXCEPT in hydrophthalmos very little is known about the size and shape of the cornea in glaucoma. About 100 years ago von Helmholtz (1855) and von Graefe (1857) supposed that the corneal radius increased when the intra- ocular pressure was rising. They thought that the shallow anterior chamber found in acute congestive glaucoma could be explained in this way. How- ever, when measurements were made, no increase or only insignificant increases of the radius could be demonstrated. The shallow anterior chamber is probably the result of genetic factors creating a structure of the eye predisposing to acute glaucoma but not produced by the acute attacks themselves