George F. Merson

George Fowlie Merson FRSE FPS FCS (1866–1959) was a Scottish pharmacist who produced an artificial surgical catgut[1] called Mersuture.

Mr and Mrs Merson conducted experiments in their kitchen saucepans involving sheep intestines and smells of which only a catgut manufacture can understand.

These experiments were carried out in a private house in Edinburgh where it was customary for the kitchen pulley to be a very strong structure for drying clothes was used for stretching their experimental catgut process that was later tested by his surgeon friends.

Finding success in his experiments he rented a small factory in Meuse Lane, behind Jenners on Princes Street.

The company’s first catalogue in 1917 describes a wide range of catgut products – either in rolls or sterilised by Iodine in glass tubes.

The grave is marked by a granite Celtic cross and lies close to the centre of the 20th century northern extension on Queensferry Road.