CHAPTER VIII 



REPAIRS AND REGENERATION EXPERIMENTS ON 

 HYDRA AND OTHER FORMS 



ONE of the most remarkable powers of living matter 

 is that which it possesses of making its own re- 

 Repairs pairs, of mending itself where it has been damaged, 



^ and, in certain cases, of reconstructing large portions 

 t 



of the body which have been destroyed or separated 

 from it. 



In some form or another this power belongs to 

 all living matter and when we watch a wound heal 

 in ourselves or in any animal we see a minor 

 example of the process of regeneration. The ex- 

 perimental study of this subject has been one of 

 the most fruitful paths of scientific research during 

 the past quarter of a century, and the more import- 

 ant results which have been obtained have been 

 embodied in a very interesting work by Professor 

 T. H. Morgan. 1 



The power in question is one which is met with 

 in plants and in animals and amongst the latter 

 finds examples even of its major manifestations 

 both amongst vertebrates and invertebrates. 

 1 Regeneration, Macmillan Company, 1901. 



