INFLUENCE OF HYPOPHYSECTOMY ON THE EPITHELIZATION OF WOUNDS AND ON FIBROPLASIA

Abstract

Wound healing, a thoroughly fundamental biologic problem, has been subjected to a great deal of investigation with the production of many methods of attack and many sets of results often at variance with each other. The factual observation of healing has been carefully carried out and recorded, while the causative agents and the modifying stimuli have been less well explained. The capacity to repair injury in a tissue decreases with increasing specialization of that tissue, and in highly specialized structures substitutive repair by means of fibroplasia occurs, while epithelium retains the ability to repair denuded surfaces. It is the purpose of this paper to study what effect the removal of the hormones of the pituitary and of those glands under the control of the pituitary has on the ability of an animal to exert reparative epithelial growth or reparative fibroplasia. The investigations of Loeb¹ opened the way for modern