Page:A Treatise on the Membranes in General, and on Different Membranes in Particular.djvu/154

150 MORBID MEMBRANES. done much for science, I think, if in all its branches we should demonstrate this principle, which already rests on so great a number of facts, namely, that nature, sparing of means, is prodigal of results; that a small number of causes every where preside over a multitude of facts, and that most of those, of which we are uncertain, belong to the same principles as many others that seem evident to us.

243. It is not my object, in this place, to consider cicatrices or scars in the divers organs, to follow the phenomena of the union of the bones, muscles, and tendons. This undertaking, sketched in some points, hardly begun in most, would draw me into discussions foreign from a treatise on the membranes, in which should only be found the history of that thin pellicle, which supplies in wounds, with loss of substance, the portion of removed skin.

244. Every wound that passes its usual stages, presents between its beginning and cicatrization, the following phenomena: 1. it inflames; 2. fleshy granulations are formed on its surface; 3. it suppurates; 4. it subsides; 5. it is covered with a slender pellicle, at first red, then whitish. Let us successively examine these various stages.

245. The inflammatory period begins from the formation of the wound; it is the immediate result of the irritation of the wounding instrument, of the contact of air, of pieces of the dressing, or of other surrounding objects.