Short-term eye banking is based mainly on moist chamber and McCarey-Kaufman medium (M-K medium) preservation. Both involve a controlled 4 C temperature for storage. Warming the cornea to room temperature, however, drastically affects the endothelial viability. On enzymatic staining and histological study, the M-K medium-stored rabbit corneas had more normal endothelium than did "moist chamber" eyes when storage was prolonged for seven days at room temperature. In human corneas that were kept at 4 C for 24 hours and then exposed to a temperature of 25 C, destruction of organelles had occurred by six hours and was increased by 12 hours. Corneas that were kept in M-K medium had relatively intact endothelium after four days, but cell disruption and vacuolation was present by the seventh day. The M-K medium, therefore, affords protection to tissue warmed to room temperature, where metabolic activity is resumed.