ABSTRACT This paper provides a detailed historical assessment of the origin and developmental progress of the concept of wound healing and its attempted acceleration from its start in the beginning of the 20th century to approximately 1960. Emphasis is placed on the development of cell culture in the assessment of wound healing and in attempts to validate experimental findings via clinical research. Of particular interest were the observations that wound healing could be accelerated in the 30–50% range with the dose response displaying biphasic characteristics consistent with the hormesis doseresponse model. Such findings set the stage for the hormetic dose-response revolution that is occurring within the biological and biomedical sciences, including wound healing, whereby considerable research now supports the capacity for endogenous and exogenous agents to accelerate the process of wound healing and its functional performance.