Knowledge of corneal oxygen consumption is important for a complete understanding of corneal metabolism. Currently available data gives this information only for particular sets of experimental conditions. No effort has been made to experimentally obtain similar information for in vivo conditions. Thus, all extrapolations of corneal oxygen consumption to normal in vivo states require an a priori assumption. The proposed work involves an effort to determine corneal oxygen consumption through two experiments, one in vitro and one in vivo, designed to complement each other and which together would make a significant advancement toward eliminating the need for the a priori assumption mentioned above. To further delineate corneal oxygen consumption, an attempt will be made to measure this parameter for each component layer of the cornea. As a by-product of the theoretical models employed, corneal oxygen permeability will be determined also with no further experimental work required. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: T.E. Tang, R.E. Barr, V.G. Murphy and A.W. Hahn. A working Equation for Oxygen Sensing Disk Electrodes. 3rd Symposium, International Society for Oxygen Transport to Tissues, Cambridge, England, July, 1977. R.E. Barr, T.E. Tang and A.W. Hahn. Optimization Parametrs for Stable Oxygen Probes. 3rd Symposium, International Society for Oxygen Transport to Tissues, Cambridge, England, July, 1977.