ON THE CATGUT LIGATURE 109 



liquefied by the addition of a little water, we get in course of time a properly 

 prepared catgut. I wished to ascertain how much water was required. The 

 carbolic acid would enable oil to dissolve a certain amount of water ; would 

 that amount of water be sufficient which carbolic acid enables oil to dissolve ? 

 According^, I prepared jars of carbolic oil, some containing the full amount 

 of water we had used hitherto, some a smaller quantity, and some none at all, 

 and placed in them portions of the same hank of catgut. In due time I pro- 

 ceeded to examine the result, by taking portions of gut and putting them into 

 warm water and leaving them for a while, in order to ascertain how the knots 

 would hold. To my great surprise, I found that which had been steeping in 

 the carbolic acid and oil without any water just as good as that which was in 

 the carbolic acid and oil with the water. This was contrary to distinct previous 

 experience. Reflecting on the matter, I saw that the only possible explanation 

 was that the catgut was already, so to speak, prepared before I put it in the 

 liquid. Now it so happened that the catgut I had used was several years old ; 

 and it turned out that mere age of the catgut prepares it ; that in proportion 

 to its age it is rendered less liable to^be softened by water or bv blood-serum 

 and a knot tied upon it will hold better. And thus I had for the first time, 

 I believe, scientific evidence of the truth of what is popularly spoken of as the 

 ' seasoning ' of various articles made of animal products. I asked a person 

 who sold violin strings if there was any result from keeping the strings a long 

 time. He replied that the only result he knew of was that the}- would probably 

 get rotten. But it so happened just about that time there came an old fiddler 

 to amuse the patients in the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, at Christmas time. 

 The weather was wet, and he said that his fiddle would not work properly because 

 the fiddle-strings were not properly seasoned. So he was aware that fiddle- 

 strings, which of course are catgut, are liable to seasoning, and require it. The 

 knowledge of this effect of the mere lapse of time was very important, because 

 it enabled me to explain the success that I had had in my earlier experience 

 with catgut before I knew at all the proper mode of preparing it. I look back 

 with horror at some of mj^ earh^ procedures with catgut. I have operated, for 

 example, on an irreducible ventral hernia, opened the sac, divided the adhesion, 

 returned the protruding intestines, stitched up the mouth of the sac witli catgut. 

 and then applied stitches at considerable intervals in the skin. All went per- 

 fectly well ; but the mode of preparation that I then used, if I had worked 

 with catgut recently made, must have led, in such a case, to utter disaster ; 

 the knots must have slipped in a few hours, and the intestines nuist have been 

 protruded through the wound. 



I need hardly say this mode of preparation, interesting though it is. would 



