Barry, I can hardly believe what you have just shown us ! !
'The Dark Ages' hardly does it justice - a 5mm screw in anchor and two bits of poly 'string' and the clumsiest array of 'knots' that the best knotting layperson would be proud of - it almost reminds me of this --
-- surely that great stack of hitches are going to chafe?
-- how long did it take the surgeon to tie that stack?
-- the price of a surgeon and staff and resource - all wasted waiting for a great junk of a 'Hurley hitch' to be tied
-- the added strain on the person being knocked out while these are being tied.
-- the hygiene issues around tying that thread.
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A few months back, one of my Greyhounds collected a gash about 30mm long on his shoulder. A trip to the vet and two stitches were put in to hold the gash closed. Within a day the stitches had cut through the skin and pulled right through. The vets would not restitch so sent him home with instructions to just bath the open wound and let time scar it over. Within another day, it had pulled open until it was about 15mm wide. It was going to take some time to heal and would leave quite a scar.
I took a 2" length of micropore surgical tape (1" wide) and stuck it to one side of the gash about 1/8" from the edge, then did the same to the other side. Then I pushed the edges together and put two 5mm steristrip sutures across the gash, sticking them to the micropore. I then taped the sutures down with another strip of micropore. The micropore held onto the skin over a relatively huge area - huge in comparison to the tiny area of contact the stitches were making. The wound was effectively held closed along the whole of its length. The steristrips are very strong and held the two sides together easily, even against normal flexing of a Greyhound in full 'extension'
Two days later he went back to the vets for a checkup and the wound was already healing rapidly.
The vet did a 'take two' and eventually said 'well, that is a novel solution'. A week later, the 'patches' came off and the wound was healed (he is only 18 months old, so he heals like an express train).
Now the year is 2010. Wouldn't you think our surgeons would be using some advancement on string and Hurley hitches to tie us back together?
Ideas on the back of a postcard please, or just post them here - do you mind Barry?
Derek