MANUFACTURE OF CATGUT

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21465, 6 May 1935, Page 19

MANUFACTURE OF CATGUT

INDUSTRY* REVIVED BY WAR

WORK OF MR G. F. MERSON

The history of the growth of an important industry in Great Britain, that concerned in the manufacture of. sterir lised surgical catgut and allied products, was described yesterday by Mr G. F. Merson, managing director of G. F. Merson, Ltd.. of Edinburgh, who is on a business visit to New Zealand. Mr Merson said that at the time of the outbreak of the Great War catei""* had not been made in Great B? lor for 60 years, and all supplies wer ported from Germany. He hi .. was directly concerned in the revival of the industry at the beginning of the war. At the beginning of the war Mr Merson was in business as a chemist. He had no experience at all of manufacturing business, nor of the manufacture of catgut. He was approached in Edinburgh and asked to undertake the production of a suitable gut, so he applied himself to the task of working out' a method. In due course his product was approved by surgeons and by the War Office, the office taking the whole output of the factory throughout the war. Since the war, as had been expected. German competition has affected the industry to some extent, but in spite of this, Mr Merson said, the firm has been able) to capture a good share of the market. Mr Merson said that he believed that a very large proportion of the catgut used in the Dominion was the product fo his firm. He was in New Zealand about eight years ago, when he attended the opening of an extension of the Ota'go University Medical School. On his present trip he has visited South Africa, and Australia, and will leave from Auckland on May 28 for Canada and California.