Eye Bank

Six blind people were waiting in a Manhattan hospital last week for secondhand eyes. Never since doctors discovered how to replace fogged corneas with clear ones from corpses (TIME, April 13, 1936) have there been enough eye transplants to go round. Doctors estimate that the cornea operation could help 100,000 U.S. citizens to see, but it is a rare type of philanthropist who at his death gives his sound eyes for this purpose.

To remedy the local eye shortage, the two big hospitals which do a lot of New York City's eye work (Cornell Medical Center, Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital) are starting an eye bank. It will be run on the same principle as a blood bank except that 1) any healthy human eye will do for transplanting--blood type does not matter; 2) doctors do not like to use grafts from eyes that have been kept more than 72 hours, so the bank's assets must be used more quickly than a blood bank's.

The plan is to get 100 or more metropolitan hospitals to contribute eyes from cadavers, always getting legal releases, even for willed eyes, as relatives often object to their removal. Each of the hospitals in succession will get a week's supply of eyes, will turn over any extra eyes to other hospitals that need them. A very few eyes will go a long way--one sound eye can provide grafts for as many as three blind eyes. Once the eye bank gets established, no blind person whose cornea can be repaired should have to wait very long to see.

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