ABSTRACT
History For thousands of years, we have been searching for an ideal suture material. Naturally occurring materials such as cotton, bark fiber, horsetails, and the mouthparts of pitcher ants have been used to close wounds. Innovative physicians tried violin strings, wooden sticks, and other devices for the same purpose. When synthetic materials such as nylon were developed for other purposes, surgeons adapted them to wound closure. It was not until the 1970s that synthetic polymers were developed specifically for use as suture materials on the basis of their physical, chemical, and biological properties.
