[The causes of blindness by corneal diseases in 3,499 cases].

The chief causes of corneal blindness was found to be corneal inflammatory diseases and injury in 83.4% of the 3,499 cases (3,993 eyes) of corneal blindness that presented themselves during 1983-1985 at the authors' hospital. The important diseases in order of frequency were herpes simplex keratitis (42.8%), bacterial keratitis (17.4%), corneal injuries (15.7%), keratomalacia (10.0%), and trachoma (3.8%). Patients of the latter two diseases were mostly old cases. The authors discussed the incidence of corneal diseases and their prevention and treatment.