56 ANTISEPTIC TREATMENT OF WOUNDS. 
V. SUTURING AND LIGATURE MATERIAL, DRAIN- 
AGE BANDAGES 
In the preliminary chapters we have learned the method 
of disinfecting a wound; now, therefore, we should discuss 
how to keep this disinfected wound aseptic and make it heal, 
were it not necessary before we proceed in this routine, to take 
into closer observation a few substances, which, although they 
are not essential to the aseptic treatment of wounds, are often 
used. 
To ligate vessels and to sew up wounds, which should heal 
by direct union, we are in need of a substance which should 
possess certain qualities for the purpose of treating wounds 
antiseptically, viz. : 
First—It must be disinfected so as not to infect the wound. 
Second It must not, if it stays in the tissue, act as a foreign 
body in such a way that, after a healing of the wound has 
been effected, a reaction for the purpose of eliminating the 
suturing and ligating material shall take place. It is again 
LISTER that furnished us such a material in catgut. He laid 
twisted sheep-guts for two to three months in a 20 per cent 
carbolized oil and preserved them in it for further use. The 
advantages of this catgut were so numerous that it imme- 
diately displaced all other materials, for it healed in the wound 
and finally became absorbed without causing the slightest 
irritation. Now the catgut manufacture, according to LIS- 
TER, is much in use, but it has the fault of being too ex- 
pensive for veterinary purposes, besides the knots, consid- 
ering the large numbers we use, do not hold well, so that 
the ligatures and sutures easly open up. With the discovery 
and introduction of other antiseptics and in the same pro- 
portion as carbolic acid, on account of its being poisonous, 
commenced to be interdicted, other methods of pre- 
