Patent ID: 6936069

Claim:
A method of stripping the muscular attachment of a harvested tendon comprising the steps of: a. providing a muscle stripping device, said device comprising: i. a unitary body having a main longitudinal axis, said body furthermore having two or more interconnected stripping slots therethrough of various sizes, said slots being oriented along said main axis, wherein ii. said slots in said body are ordered according to either increasing size or decreasing size, and wherein iii. said slots are interconnected by individual grooves between adjacent slots, wherein the diameter of any said groove is smaller than the diameter of any said slot; b. attaching a suture to each end of a harvested tendon; c. placing the suture leader into the entry access of a stripping slot of a desired size in said device body; c. stripping the attached muscle off of the tendon by performing a backward and forward motion through stripping slots of varying sharpness, and by passing the tendon through the interconnecting grooves into slots of different diameters and dimensions until all the attached muscles are detached.