Maggot therapy

Maggot therapy is use of maggotsin medicineto clean out necroticwounds. Maggot therapy has been used through the ages.

The maggots used are those which eat dead flesh but not living human flesh (blowflies, usually the greenbottleLucilia sericata, which is sometimes called Phaenicia sericata). Some maggots, such as the screw wormCochliomyia hominivorax, cannot be used because they eat live flesh.

Sterile maggots of the specieswhich may be used to clean wounds and promote healing are commerically available.

In the early days of medicine, maggot infestations of wounds (myiasis) were inevitable, due to flies laying eggs in the wounds. Maggot-infested wounds tended to be less life-threatening than other wounds, so until antibioticswere developed it was common practice to leave the maggots. After antibiotics came into use, the presence of maggots became viewed as unhygienic. In recent years, however, use of specially sanitized maggots has developed as a treatment for various types of wounds such as leg ulcersand pressure sores, gangreneand other bacterial infestations, since the maggot will only eat the dead rotting infected flesh and leave the living flesh intact. It is especially useful for people with weakened immune systemsor blood flow that become infected in the extremities, such as diabetics, and is particularly effective in treating diabetic foot problems.

It has been shown that presence of maggots stops gas gangrenefrom starting in a wound.

It may be that this ability of some maggots to disinfect and clean wounds originated in the wild when flies laid eggs in the wounds of live animals. It was benefical for the maggots if the host animal was kept healthy and able to keep up with its herd, and not lag behind where a predatorsuch as a lionor wolfwould single it out and eat it before the maggots could finish their larvaldevelopmentand drop out of the wound and pupate. Also, preventing the wound from emitting a smell would stop wolves from tracking the injured animal by the smell from the wound.

Maggot therapy is not a new practice: According to a documentary on the History Channel, in 1822Americanmountain manHugh Glass—who had been gravely injured by a grizzly bearattack and left alone in the wilderness to die—rolled himself onto a rotting log and had the maggots clean an infected wound on his back.

External links

• Introduction to maggot therapy
• FAQ on maggot therapy

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggot+therapy Wikipedia article Maggot therapy.