A full list of contributing surgeons appears at the end of the article.

Materials and methodsEyes were collected between one and 12 hours after death (mean 4 5 hours). Most were removed and processed by either of two trained eye bank technicians, but in some cases a medical graduate made the collection.Prior to enucleation the eyelashes, eyelids, and skin in the vicinity of the eye were swabbed with a 1% iodine solution (Povidone-lodine). A lid speculum was then inserted and a limbal swab was taken, plated onto horse blood agar, and placed in brain-heart infusion broth (BHIB). The eye was irrigated with 15 ml of normal saline and then removed by an aseptic technique. The globe was placed in a glass pot containing gauze moistened with saline and 10 drops of Neosporin (polymyxin B, neomycin, and gramicidin) were applied to the cornea. The eye was transported to the Eye Bank for slit-lamp examination and processing.Working in a laminar-flow hood the technician soaked the globe for 3 minutes in 40 ml of 1% iodine and rinsed in normal saline. The corneoscleral button was removed by aseptic techniques and was placed in a sterile polypropylene storage chamber (CooperVision Inc., Irvine, California) with McCarey-Kaufman (MK) medium containing 60 mg/l gentamicin sulphate. It was refrigerated at 40C until required.The remnants of the buttons used within the parent institution (Flinders Medical Centre) were recovered for microbiological analysis. Scleral rims were divided and each half was put in a tube of thioglycollate broth. One of each pair of thioglycollate broths was incubated anaerobically.All the media were incubated for two days at 370C in 5% C02/air. Organisms were identified by standard methods as given by Lennette et al.' and the surgeon was informed of any growth from scleral remnants.A total of 434 pairs of eyes were collected during the study period. Limbal swabs were taken from both eyes of 278 donors and from one eye of 33 donors, 225 on 10 May 2018 by guest. Protected by copyright.