Surgery

Thread Catgut (1)

Thread, about 1950

For gut strings in English until today the misleading term "Catgut" (= cat gut) is common. The originof this term is explained by an anecdote: around 1300 Italian saddlers discovered in the small town of Salle / Pescara that the intestines of the wild mountain sheep of the region, which they used to sew the saddle, were particularly suitable as a string for musical instruments. The string production quickly became the most important industry of the place. In order to protect against competition, the true origin of the intestinal material used by them was concealed, and claims that it is cat gut. Back then, there were some superstitions about cats, and the killing of cats was regarded as unfortunate - so it was hoped to deter potential imitators.

However, if someone does decide to kill cats to use their intestines, then a nasty surprise awaits him: the gut of stray cats (only those could be obtained in practice) - due to the uncontrollable food and intercurrent Intestinal infections - of such varying quality that every producer's teeth would break out on this problem.