Antiseptic surgery : its principles, practice, history and results / by W. Watson Cheyne.

  • Watson Cheyne
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Antiseptic surgery : its principles, practice, history and results / by W. Watson Cheyne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    608/656 page 572
    coats of the vessel, but after a time a ring of newly formed fibrous tissue will be found in the situation of the original ring of catgut. For these reasons also the risk of secondary hemorrhage is reduced to a minimum. The facts with regard to the organisation of the catgut liga- ture were described by Mr. Lister in his first publication on the subject as long ago as 1869,i and as some of his state- ments have been misunderstood I may quote what he says. It has been supposed by some that he held that the dead blood clot and that the dead catgut became revivified in the tissues. Such an idea is of course utterly absurd and was never entertained nor expressed by Mr. Lister. Indeed, he speaks as follows as regards the blood clot, and applies his remarks to catgut: ' Thus the dead, but nutritious mass, had served as a mould for the formation of new tissue, the growing elements of which had replaced the materials absorbed, so as to constitute a hving solid of the same form.' Mr. Lister tied the carotid artery of a calf in two places with a ligature of catgut (in one place with two ligatm^s), and a month later he killed the calf and ex- amined the parts. He says : ' The two pieces of catgut which had been tied round the vessel at the distal part had become, as it were, fused together into a single fleshy band, inseparably blended with the external coat of the artery. The knots were nowhere discoverable, and the only indication of the end which had been left long at the time of the operation was the presence of a black speck' (the original material contained dark mineral impurities) ' here and there upon a delicate thread of cellular tissue in connection with the vessel. The cardiac ligature was in like manner continuous in structure with the arterial wall. The short ends had disappeared; but the mas- sive knot was represented by a soft smooth lump, which ap- peared at first entirely homogenous, except that it was speckled with dark particles as before referred to. On section, however, I discovered in the interior of the mass, and lying close to the wall of the artery, a small residual portion of the original knot, of comparatively firm consistence, and with the threefold twisted character of the cord plainly visible. It was qvute dis- tinct from the living tissue, so that it could be readily picked » Lancet, April 3, 1869.
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