Word: corneas
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...heralded event that it is today. They are equally diverse in their views as to how surgery will eventually overcome the fact that all animals, and especially man, are designed to resist any invasion of foreign protein from any creature except an identical twin. (The major exception is the cornea, which has no blood supply. Paradoxically, blood transfusion itself is a transplant, but it tides the patient over, despite eventual rejection of white cells...
...destroys those cells along with the virus particles lurking in them. When the first effective use of a drug against a viral disease was reported last winter (TIME, Feb. 16), it seemed like the exception that proves the rule. Idoxuridine. or IDU, was successfully used for ulcers of the cornea and nearby parts of the eye that have little or no blood supply and are relatively resistant to drug damage. The next question was whether the new drug would also kill the same virus, herpes simplex, when it infects parts of the body that have a normal blood supply...
...viral infection is to find a chemical that behaves differently in normal and diseased cells, or to find a part of the body in which the chemical acts against the virus without damaging cells. Such a part of the body is the eye. Dr. Kaufman reasoned that since the cornea, a kind of plastic window, has no blood supply, its cells might be more receptive to the effects of the drug. Kaufman's hunch, tested in rabbits, proved right in humans...
...cases where the cornea was already scarred and the infection had penetrated its deepest layers to the inner parts of the eye. IDU sometimes could not cure the disease, but still it could be made to help. In a herpes-infected eye, cortisone (which has sometimes been mistakenly tried because it is valuable in many other eye afflictions) often does swift and hideous damage by increasing inflammation. Dr. Kaufman found that a combination of IDU and cortisone in these severe cases promoted healing of the inner part of the eye and minimized damage...
...after they enter cells. Timing is important: Dr. Kaufman has found that if IDU is given at longer than hourly intervals, it does not work. Whether this first chemical breakthrough against virus infections will lead to others, no one can say. largely because of the unique nature of the cornea. Dr. Kaufman is hopeful but cautious...