Catgut

a sort of string prepared from the intestines of sheep and other animals, never those of a cat. The Century Dictionary suggests that the word may have been kitgut, "kit" meaning a violin, and that the change to catgut may have come about from a careless confusion of kit and cat. The intestines are cleansed very thoroughly, steeped in water, and all fatty matters removed. The external membrane is scraped away with a dull blade, and the clean gut is then drawn through a perforation or twisted into shape and dried. The best gut is prepared in Milan and Naples. The poorer the animal, the less fat to be removed from the intestines, the better the string. Catgut is exceedingly tough, flexible, and durable. Catgut is used extensively for the strings of violins, harps, and other stringed instruments. It is used also by clockmakers for weight cords in high grade clocks. In 1868 Dr. Lister, a professor of surgery in Glasgow, the same from whom listerine takes its name, discovered a new use for catgut. Prior to this time surgeons used silk thread to tie arteries. They depended on the final decay of the silk and its absorption by the system. Sometimes the silk rotted too soon, that is, before the artery had fully united, in which case the artery broke open and required to be retied; and, in any case, the rotting silk formed an objectionable spot of foreign matter; Dr. Lister used catgut instead. He found that a bit of properly sterilized catgut tied about a cut in an artery turns into artery wall. See Surgery

Catharine I (1684-1727), empress of Russia. She was the daughter of a Roman Catholic peasant, and became the Lutheran wife of a Swedish dragoon. When Marienburg was stormed in 1702 she fell into the hands of one and then another Russian officer; finally becoming the mistress, then the wife, and lastly, in 1724, such was her influence, the empress of Peter the Great. In 1711 she rendered her husband signal service in a war with the Turks. He was on the brink of destruction when she obtained an influence over the grand vizier, bribed his servants with her jewelry, and secured better terms for Peter than he had any reason to expect. Prince Menshikoff, whom she met before Peter saw her, stood her friend, and on Peter's death had her proclaimed empress and autocrat of all the Russias. Catharine was an unprincipled, profligate adventuress, but she did much for Peter and much for Russia. She died, it is said, in a tipsy debauch. She could neither read nor write.

Catharine II (1729-1796), empress of Russia. She was a severely educated German princess selected for the wife of Peter III, to whom she was wedded in 1745. He proved a weak, dissolute prince, unfaithful to his wife. The Orloff family shut him up in prison and proclaimed Catharine autocrat in 1762. Peter died soon after under suspicious circumstances--strangled by the Orloffs, it was said. Catharine was doubtless an unprincipled, licentious woman, but she ruled for over thirty years with an ability second only to that of Peter the Great. The latter declared that the Baltic and the Black Sea were the eyes through which Russia must look out upon the world. Peter secured the Baltic eye and Catharine led the Turks a rough life until she had secured the Black Sea eye. She formed an alliance with Frederick the Great. She was a party to the division of Poland, and obtained quite a section of Polish territory. By correspondence with Voltaire and other eminent men she won a reputation as a friend of literature. Aside from extending the bounds of Russia, Catharine saw that roads were built, canals dug, towns founded, commerce extended and protected. Under more liberal laws farmers were protected in the enjoyment of their crops and business prospered. More would have been accomplished had not the French Revolution broken out. It gave Catharine and her friends an idea that education and privileges make people dissatisfied--a notion still too prevalent among the Russian aristocracy. Thomas Carlyle called Catharine a female Louis XIV. See Poland; Kosciusko; Peter The Great; Frederick The Great

Catharine of Aragon (1485-1536), queen of England and wife of Henry VIII. She was the youngest daughter of the Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain in whose reign Columbus discovered America. In 1501 she married Arthur, son of the king of England. On the death of this prince, the king, desiring, it is said, to retain her money, caused her to marry his second son, who afterward became Henry VIII of England. The Pope granted a dispensation, as required for wedding a husband's brother, and Catharine and Henry ascended the throne of England together in 1509. For the scandals connected with her divorce from the king after twenty years of faithful wifehood, the reader is referred to articles on ANNE BOLEYN, HENRY, AND CRANMER. Catharine's daughter Mary succeeded her brother, Edward VI, on the throne of England.

Catharine de Medici (1519-1589), queen of France. She was a daughter of Lorenzo de Medici of Florence and a niece of Pope Clement VII. In 1533 she married Henry, son of Francis I of France. She came of a family noted for ability and intrigue, and is considered one of the worst of the family. She, more than any other, involved the Protestants and Catholics of France in destructive factional warfare. She was a Catholic, of course, but appears to have been quite ready to betray friend or foe, as might seem to advance her own interests. She is responsible for the terrible massacre of St. Bartholomew, perpetrated in the reign of her son, Charles IX. In spite of her reputation for political intrigue, Catharine was a woman of elegant manners and refined tastes, a patron of literature, sculpture, and painting. See Coligny; Huguenot