EARLY experimental work on the intra-ocular pressure was concerned mainly with the procedures which cause its elevation or reduction, but more recently attention has been focused upon the factors responsible for the maintenance of normal pressure in the eye. From this second line of thought has developed the concept that the intra-ocular pressure is kept at a fairly constant level by a regulatory mechanism; the evidence for this has been reviewed elsewhere (Gloster, 1959). It has been suggested that regulation may be effected by a purely mechanical system, by hormonal influences, or by a reflex nervous mechanism. Concerning the last possibility, the view that the intra-ocular pressure is controlled by a diencephalic nervous mechanism has received considerable support (Elwyn, 1938;L. Hess, 1945; Magitot, 1949; Thiel, 1952;Duke-Elder, 1957), and the most specific hypothesis which has been advanced attributes this control of the influence of one or more "centres" in the diencephalon (Schmerl and Steinberg, 1950).As a first step in the examination of these hypotheses, the response of the intra-ocular pressure to electrical stimulation of the diencephalon has been studied (Schmerl and Steinberg, 1950;Nagai, Ban, and Kurotsu, 1951; von Salhnann and Lowenstein, 1955; Gloster and Greaves, 1957).Gloster and Greaves (1957, 1958), working with cats, obtained falls in intra-ocular pressure accompanied by rises in blood pressure, these reactions being obtained from stimulations in an area of the hypothalamus close to the anterior column of the fornix. It was thought that the fall in intraocular pressure was due to vasoconstriction in the eye, since the effect was abolished by preganglionic cervical sympathotomy. From these observations two closely related questions arise. First, can the area of the hypothalamus from which these effects were elicited be considered as a " centre" concerned specifically with reduction of intra-ocular pressure? Secondly, is the vasoconstriction evoked from this area limited to the eye or does it involve other tissues, the blood vessels of which are innervated via the cervical sympathetic trunk?Gloster and Greaves (1957) also described rises in intra-ocular pressure which were not dependent upon changes in the systemic blood pressure. Most of these responses were obtained from the stimulation of points which were scattered over a fairly wide area of the thalamus. However, it was *