Catgut Catgut Catgut is a type of cord that is prepared from the natural fibre found in the walls of animal intestines. Catgut makers usually use sheep or goat intestines, but occasionally use the intestines of cattle, hogs, horses, mules, or donkeys. Despite the name, catgut manufacturers do not use cat intestines. The word "catgut" may have been an abbreviation of the word "cattlegut". Alternatively, it may derive by folk etymology from "kitgut" or "kitstring"—the word "kit", meaning fiddle, having at some point been confused with the word "kit" for a young cat; The word kit, being derived from fiddle in
Catgut infection. Catgut sutures remain in use in developing countries where they are locally less expensive and easier to obtain. Catgut treated with chromium salts, known as chromic catgut, is also used in surgery. Natural gut is still used as a high-performance string in tennis racquets, although it had more popularity in the past and is being displaced by synthetic strings. To prepare catgut, workers clean the small intestines, free them from any fat, and steep them in water. Then they scrape off the external membrane with a blunt knife, and steep the intestines again for some time in potassium hydroxide.