THE USE OF COTTON AS A SUTURE MATERIAL

Abstract

Fundamentally, surgeons are interested in methods and materials which lead to primary and early wound healing. Dissatisfaction with the results obtained with catgut as a suture material has led to a renewal of interest in nonabsorbable sutures during the past decade. After Bulloch and his co-workers¹in Great Britain, Krönig²in Germany and Meleney and his associates³and Clock⁴in this country had demonstrated that catgut purchased on the open market was not infrequently contaminated, Whipple,⁵who had previously used catgut, strongly advocated the use of silk, with which he was able to show a reduced incidence of infections in clean wounds. This work gave a new impetus to the use of nonabsorbable suture material. a usage initiated in modern surgery by Halsted⁶and Kocher⁷at the end of the last century. There exists venerable authority for the use of cotton as surgical