Effects of photochemical air pollution on the human eye--concerning eye irritation, tear lysozyme and tear pH.

This paper is presented to make both ocular symptoms and signs clear, by means of some experiments on the eye affected by photochemical air pollution. This paper summarizes three experiments, these results and discussion. The first series of experiments were performed in order to research eye irritation caused by photochemical synthetic irritants. They proved the threshold of eye irritation and the grade of irritable pollutants. Effects of photochemical air pollution on the human eye were epidemiologically investigated in the second series of experiments. Tear lysozyme and tear pH were chiefly traced as factors of the affected eye. In the third series of experiments, hen egg lysozyme was examined under various synthetic pollutants to seek what substances reduce the tear lysozyme. As a result, it has been suggested that ozone(03) was primarily responsible for its reduction under photochemical smog. Finally in this paper, it has been discussed why ocular symptoms and signs occurred in photochemical smog.