CHAPTER IV 



A BIOLOGICAL PHENOMENON— THE 

 CICATRIZATION OF WOUNDS— TIME- 

 PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS 



We will now examine in detail a phenomenon which is familiar 

 to everybody. Cicatrization can be studied either in vivo or 

 in vitro and therefore belongs to the methods of Class B. 



This phenomenon is too complex to lend itself to chemical 

 analysis as a whole. It is a manifestation of the cellular 

 activity of reparation and proliferation. We propose to show 

 the reader how the quantitative laws were established, by 

 making him successively participate in all the stages of the 

 experiments and in the reasoning which led to their discovery. 



But before delving into the heart of the subject, we would 

 like to change the tone adopted in the preceding chapters, for 

 the following reasons. 



Up till now we have spoken of general questions. We have 

 exposed the different points of view of eminent scientists, 

 living or dead, and we have expressed our own opinion. In 

 conformance to an old habit, we have avoided speaking in the 

 first person as is done in original papers. This is a convention, 

 which is not followed by everybody and which misleads no 

 one. The aim pursued by the author in all scientific papers 

 is to efface his personality as much as possible and to let the 

 facts speak for themselves. This, at any rate, is the end that 

 everybody should seek and that most of us attain, even when 

 T is employed instead of 'we'. 



One of the principal tasks of the experimenter is the 

 elimination of the 'individual factor' or 'personal coefficient'. 

 There are always too many causes of error, and this particular 

 one can take on different aspects. The observers are not 

 identically sensitive to light radiations, to sound. The way 

 in which they appreciate the equality of two juxtaposed 



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