Quantitative analysis of the central corneal refractive powers of both eyes of three patients demonstrated that, after radial keratotomy, the corneas tended to have a greater range of refractive powers than preoperatively, and that the corneas with a multifocal effect had a wider distribution of refractive powers than the corneas of eyes without this effect. It may be possible to intentionally achieve a multifocal lens effect by designing a refractive procedure to predictably widen the distribution of central corneal refractive powers.