| Abstract: | The direct and consensual accommodation of both eyes were determined by a modified coincidence refractometer. Young individuals with normal monocular and binocular vision revealed a close quantitative correspondence between the direct and the ipsi- and contralateral consensual accommodation. Experimental impairment of the function of the ciliary muscle by medical means caused disturbed consensual accommodation of both eyes. The weakening of the function of the ciliary muscle of one eye by instillation of, for example Homatropin leads to an important increase of the contralateral and diminution of the ipsilateral consensual accommodation. By the results of the investigations it was concluded: 1. that the regulation of the direct accommodation reflex is influenced also by the function of the ciliary muscle in the fixating eye and has stimulating and depressing components, 2. that the innervation of the nonfixating eye passes through an efferent neuron, from where the accommodation impulse emerges to both eyes. - The anatomically based relation between the direct and the ipsilateral and contralateral consensual accommodation allows one to use its quantitative determination in both eyes as a diagnostic test in afferent and efferent disturbances of the accommodation reflex. |
