Creepy crawly medicine--does it work?
BMJ 2002; 325 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/sbmj.0208275 (Published 01 August 2002) Cite this as: BMJ 2002;325:0208275
- Samena Chaudhry, preregistration house officer1,
- Ardeshir Bayat, specialist registrar and research fellow in plastic and reconstructive surgery2
- 1Elderly Care, Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham B29 6JD
- 2South Manchester University Hospitals Trust, Manchester M23 9LT
There are some more unusual techniques used in medicine, and they can also be a little gruesome. The thought of maggots crawling around on your skin is pretty unpleasant, but it does apparently have some therapeutic basis…
Imagine going to a doctor for a leg wound that just won't heal. Instead of prescribing antibiotics, the doctor suggests a treatment of maggots. Sounds horrible? You may have read stories with concentrated close ups of huge numbers of scary and non- sterile looking creatures and wondered why anyone would even consider such a treatment. But, disgusting as it sounds, scientific research has shown that, in some cases, such creepy crawlies may heal a wound more quickly and efficiently than modern medicine. “Biosurgery” using larvae such as maggots for treatment of difficult wounds is now becoming an established discipline in the management of difficult wounds.
VOLKER STEGER/SPL
Maggots
Maggot therapy (placing live sterile maggots on a wound, also known as larval therapy), in combination with surgery, was used during the early decades of the 20th century for treating osteomyelitis and purulent infections of the soft tissue.1 We have known for hundreds of years that soldiers whose wounds become infected with maggots are less likely to die from septicaemia than those who did not.2 Since the 1940s, when antibiotics became widely available, maggot therapy was used only as a last resort. But maggots have more recently again been used successfully in the treatment of various chronic soft tissue wounds, including neurovascular ulcers, venous stasis …
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