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Abstract
Retinal function has been examined by identifying the activity of both rod and cone receptor systems in the electroretinogram (ERG) and the response of the optic nerve in the isolated cat eye, perfused through its ophthalmociliary artery with a solution devoid of hemoglobin. This preparation can maintain an ERG of normal configuration and of relatively large amplitude, dark-adapts after strong adapting lights, shows a Purkinje shift, and has synoptic transmission from the receptors up to and including the ganglion cell layer of the retina. In this preparation, rod function is more vulnerable to damage than cone function, and this vidnerability appears to occur somewhere between the rod receptor cell and second-order neurons in the retina.