92 CICATRIZATION OF WOUNDS 



the wound, long at the outset, shrinks rapidly. Not only is it 

 altogether neghgible for large wounds, but by reason of the 

 form of the formula itself its action is compensated and it 

 enters automatically into play the minute it becomes useful. 

 I may add that from a practical point of view these calcula- 

 tions would be tedious did the slide rule not exist. Without 

 this marvellous tool it would have been much more difficult 

 and would have taken much longer to solve these problems. 

 Moreover, my mathematical treatment of them was not in the 

 least classical: the formula is not homogeneous, and a true 

 mathematician would probably judge my method rather 

 severely. That is why I endeavoured to find a more elegant 

 procedure. The reader will soon see that I succeeded in 

 obtaining a general equation of classical aspect. I rarely em- 

 ployed it, however, for it is much less convenient than the 

 first, and requires two coefficients instead of one. 



Meanwhile, I was sent to the Rockefeller Institute in New 

 York for a stay of several weeks. During this time I applied 

 my formula to study the cicatrization of civilian wounds and 

 in particular of varicose ulcers. 



I was able to verify that these wounds of pathological origin 

 cicatrized according to the formula as soon as they were dis- 

 infected. Curiously enough, in certain cases the cicatrization 

 was more rapid — there was a higher index — than would have 

 been the case in a war wound, that is to say, in a fresh wound. 

 It seemed as if nature had accumulated materials during the 

 long period in which the infected ulcer did not cicatrize, 

 which sterilization suddenly freed. We had already observed 

 this phenomenon in conjunction with momentary infections 

 of wounds previously sterile. (See Fig. 15.) 



The new problem which now confronted me was the 

 establishment of a true equation of the curve. The one of 

 which we have spoken so far rendered great services and had a 

 real practical value. But it did not permit me to calculate the 

 area at a given moment; neither could I obtain the date of 



