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Abstract
Uveitis was produced in albino rabbits by intravitreal injection of bovine serum albumin. By this often-used technique, a uveitis became manifest about 7 days after the antigen injection. Inflammation was most severe in the anterior portion of the uvea but also involved the cornea, which became thickened and hazy. Blood vessels invaded the anterior stroma from the limbus and in advanced cases reached half way to the center of the cornea and the middle, as well as the anterior layers ofthe stroma. Marked haze teas noted in the anterior chamber, and evidence of cells and fibrin clots coidd be seen by slit lamp examination. Structural changes of the endothelium included mononuclear cell infiltration and vacuolization. The cells were lymphocytes and plasma cells. Although polymorphonuclear leukocytes were observed in the anterior chamber, none was found invading the endothelium. The actual invasion itself consisted of the cells entering between endothelial cells, so that they came to lie first in the interendothelial cell space and finally under the endothelium, between it and Descemet's membrane. During this process the endothelial cell cytoplasm showed little evidence of change. Their cytoplasmic organelles were well preserved, but there was a remarkable change in the dilation of the intercellular space. The junctional complexes which characterized the anterior chamber aspect of these cells appeared intact, even though lymphocytes and plasma cells lay under them and between endothelial cells, and apparently had passed through these junctions. The changes which have been described were more pronounced in the inferior aspect of the cornea where massive keratic precipitates occurred. In no instance did inflammatory cells invade Descemet's membrane. It is concluded, therefore, that they were derived entirely from the anterior chamber, which they had presumably entered from the iris of ciliary processes.