Types Of Sutures
What are the different types of sutures? The term suture is most often used to refer to the stitches used by doctors (typically surgeons) for closing up openings in body tissue. These types of sutures are usually in the aftermath of surgery, but there are also different types of sutures for closing up shallow wounds ; it’s generally advised you should never suture a deep puncture wound, as there’d be no way for infection to drain off. There are all different kind of ways for performing different types of sutures, a suture is also contingent on enough skin and tissue being present for the doctor to stitch back together; in large-scale tissue injuries such as road rash, the total absence of skin and muscle makes suturing the wound impossible. The purpose of these types of sutures are not to create a permanent seal on its own, but to help set the tissue back in place so it can heal on its own; they will usually be removed after a few weeks or months, whenever the wound is healed enough to stay closed on its own. In cases where the sound would heal with a very large scar due to its size, other types of sutures can bring the healing tissue in more tightly and allow it to heal in a smaller, narrower area. Finally, it also aids in preventing new infection from entering a wound once it has begun to heal, ensuring it can do so unimpeded.
As with any medical procedure, it’s crucial the thread be sterilized or it will introduce new infection to a wound, defeating the purpose of the stitches. A classic example of this can be observed in the American Civil War; to sew up battlefield injuries, Union doctors used wool thread, while Confederate doctors used cotton. The Union soldiers suffered horrible infections because wool if difficult to clean and contaminates easily; some historians say more soldiers were actually lost to infections from these procedures than actually died from gunshots. By contrast, the cotton used by the Confederates was boiled as part of the preparation process; this removes the natural oils and sterilizes the cotton, preventing it from breeding new bacteria.
Other types of sutures will also often be used to close up a cadaver after an autopsy or embalming, to make the body more presentable for its funeral arrangements.
There are other types of sutures can refer to the stitching clothing, it’s imperative the individual stitches be tightly spaced and well-secured, or the tissue will not align properly and thus will scar unfavorably.
Other main types of sutures can also refer to the soft joins in animal bones where multiple are fused together. The best example of this is a human skull; along the top of the head, a y-shaped black pattern can be observed where 3 of the bony plates lock together, making the overall brain case more secure. These fusions will follow the same general pattern with all examples of a species, but will be somewhat unique to every member of the species. They may be used in anthropology to help identify the approximate age of a deceased individual, as the fusion of bones is completed over the course of
adolescence.
