Action of Nervous Currents in Skin Wounds 35 
we now effect artificially the obstruction of some of 
these branches the entire volume of water must flow 
through the others which remain open and their volume 
of water will consequently be increased in proportion. 
In the same way let us suppose that through the 
intercellular bridges of the epidermis for example, there 
go similar nervous currents, in which when once the 
organism has attained its adult age dynamic equilibrium 
is established. And let us remove a little disc of skin 
as Siegfried Garten did, then the nervous flux which 
heretofore had taken its way through the filaments and 
protoplasmic bridges of the cells situated in the little disc 
removed will now find these ways closed. Consequently 
the entire flux must take a roundabout way through the 
neighboring parts surrounding the little disc. 
The augmentation of the nervous current in these 
ways will have as its result an augmentation of the trophic 
stimulus which it exercises; so that the cells situated 
along these ways will grow and proliferate more rapidly, 
thus producing a zone of reproduction characterized by 
numerous mitoses. The augmentation of the vital 
processes of these cells will in consequence of increased 
osmotic attraction, attract a greater quantity of nutritive 
fluid, exactly as the wick of a lamp which is stimulated 
by a current of air draws up by capillarity a larger 
quantity of combustible fluid. And this greater quantity 
of nutritive fluid pressing in between one cell and another, 
will distend the intercellular spaces so that in this zone 
they undergo an enlargement. The further the new 
formation of the skin proceeds, the shorter will be the 
way through which the abnormally increased nervous 
flux tends to pass, that is to say that the zone of the 
