From the red colour of fleshy granulations, it has been thought that they were a vascular expansion; but their development is unlike every production of the blood-vessels. On the one hand we have seen, that the cellular texture contains so many exhalants and absorbents, that it seems to be almost made up of them; on the other hand, we shall see that in inflammation a passage is constantly given to red blood in this kind of vessels; then, as the fleshy granulations are cellular, they consequently partake of the nature of this system; and when found in a real inflammatory state, we conceive that their redness is the same as that of an inflamed pleura, of the cellular texture that has become the seat of phlegmon, of erisypelatous skin, &c.; a redness that does not imply an elongation of blood vessels, but only the passage of red blood, in those that usually carry white. This is so true, that when the inflammation is gone, the blood ceasing to enter these vessels, the membrane takes its natural colour; so that the granulations, after the formation of the cicatrix that arises from their near approach to each other, whiten because the blood no longer enters them. Now if it had been a new production of vessels, they would continue and perform their functions. Moreover, how can we suppose a development of blood-vessels where they did not primarily exist, as in the tendons, the cartilages, &c. which have, like other organs, fleshy granulations in their solutions of continuity? Let us conclude from these circumstances, that the arterial system is not connected with the formation of fleshy granulations; that the cellular system is alone concerned in it, because that this alone is endowed with the faculty of increasing, extending, and reproducing itself. This is what takes place in the second period of the cicatrization of wounds; the cellular texture, by the increase of power that it acquired in the first period, is raised into vesicles irregularly disposed, which exhale a white substance, that is not well understood, and unite at their superficies and form a provisional membrane. But how is this membrane changed into that of the cicatrix? Observe nature, and you will see that it brings on suppuration and a sinking down of the parts, before the arrival of this period. _Third period._ The period of suppuration does not take place in the cicatrization of the bones, in that of broken cartilages, of torn muscles and generally in the reunion of all divided organs without external wounds. We must then show what relation there is between their cicatrices and those of the external organs; for a common principle presides over all the operations of nature, though they may have a different appearance.