_Influence of the cellular texture upon the formation of cicatrices._ Cicatrices may be considered under two relations, 1st. in the external organs, in the sub-cutaneous texture and skin particularly; 2d. in the internal organs. Let us examine them at first in the external. Every wound that follows the ordinary periods, presents between its formation and its cicatrization, the following phenomena; 1st. it inflames; 2d. fleshy granulations are formed upon its surface; 3d. it suppurates; 4th. it sinks down; 5th. it is covered with a fine pellicle, red at first and afterwards becoming whitish. Let us trace these different periods. _First period._ Inflammation commences the instant the wound is made. This is the sudden result of the irritation caused by the instrument, the contact of the air, the dressings and surrounding bodies. Shut out until then from the contact of the air, most of the parts concerned in the solution of continuity, enjoy only organic sensibility; but then these contributing to form the surface of the body, ought to enjoy animal sensibility, that which transmits to the brain the impressions that are received. Now the effect of inflammation upon organs endowed only with the first kind of sensibility, is to raise it so much, that it ascends to the same degree as the second, and can like it, transmit to the brain its impressions; so that by it the parts divided by a wound become capable of performing the functions of the integuments. This is the first advantage, without doubt, of this inflammatory period of cicatrization. Another advantage of this period is to dispose the parts to the development of fleshy granulations. In fact, inflammation always precedes this development; now the increase of life that it produces in the organs, appears to be necessary to animate the parts that are to be reproduced; by it the cellular texture, where the granulations are formed, is endowed with more sensibility and more insensible contractility; it raises it to a temperature above that of the neighbouring organs; it becomes the centre of a small circulating system independent of that of the heart. It is in the midst of this extension of the forces, that the fleshy granulations arise and increase, for the production of which the natural forces would have been insufficient. Hence the paleness and flaccidity of these granulations, when these different functions are weakened or cease. _Second period._