Cartridge for suture clips

Claim 1

A cartridge for feeding pairs of clips simultaneously in laterally spaced apart relation from an elongate housing having a central passage, a pair of slots extending through at least the major portion of the housing with a passage in between for receiving a plurality of clips in each slot aligned in end to end relation, with the slots communicating with the central passage through a contiguous opening of smaller dimension than the slots and passage, a slide within the passage, and arms extending laterally from the slide through the openings into the slots for engagement with the endmost of the clips in the slots, a handle extending from the housing and operatively connected with the slide for endwise displacement through the passage, the improvement in a means to permit the slide to move forwardly while preventing rearward movement in the passage comprising a spring clip having a forward end portion received within a slot extending inwardly from the wall of the slide opposite the handle and a trailing end portion which extends beyond the slide into engagement with the adjacent wall of the housing, with the trailing end portion being angled to extend backwardly to permit forward movement of the slide relative to the housing while preventing relative backward movement, in which the spring clip comprises a flat strip of spring metal in which the forward portion is dimensioned to have a length corresponding to the length of the slot in the slide and a trailing portion in which the total length of the strip is greater than the distance between the base of the slot to the adjacent wall of the housing for resilient engagement between the clip and the wall.