Anat. [L. cornea short for med.L. cornea tēla horny web or tissue, later cornea tunica horny coating, f. L. corneus CORNEOUS.]
The transparent convexo-concave portion of the anterior covering of the eyeball, so called from its horny consistence.
Also called lucid or proper cornea, as distinguished from the opaque cornea or sclerotic coat.
[1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. v. (1495), 108. Of the four webbes in the formest partyes of the eye the fyrste hyghte tela arena … the thirde Cornea, horny.]
1527. Andrew, Brunswyke’s Distyll. Waters, P ij b. The moystenes which is in cornea of the iyen.
1633. P. Fletcher, Purple Isl., V. 54, note. The second is cornea or hornie tunicle.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., I. 1. The diaphanous Cornea [of the Flea’s eye].
1799. Med. Jrnl., I. 332. An Instrument for cutting the Cornea, in the Operation of extracting a Cataract.
1840. G. Ellis, Anat., 104. On the inner or concave surface of the proper cornea is a thin elastic membrane—the ‘elastic cornea.’
1872. Huxley, Physiol., ix. 225–6. In front … the fibrous capsule of the eye … becomes transparent, and receives the name of the cornea.
b. Conical cornea: a conical projection of the cornea.
1854. W. Mackenzie, Dis. Eye (ed. 4), 686. It is generally the case that objects appear multiplied to an eye affected with conical cornea.
1874. G. Lawson, Dis. Eye (ed. 2), 48. Conical cornea is a staphylomatous bulging of the middle portion of the cornea, caused by a thinning of that structure in the central region.
