The "maggot cure"

[HighPockets]

Mark: The breadth of your knowledge astounds me, and to top it off you spring the "maggot cure" on us! Certainly not one of the more "mainline" bits of medicine, but an important one. The use of maggots in your story is accurate, and the story would not be improved with this added feature, but there is another way in which the maggots help the healing process: as they munch on the dead flesh, they exude a cell proliferant (sp?) which spurs the healthy cells to reproduce, filling in the voids where the dead cells were. (Howz that for a run-on sentence") Google "alantoin" for more information. Ciao. ==L==

[Mark Arbour]

Well thank you for that info, and thanks for giving me your virgin post! I'm glad you found your way here.

[Tiger]

Maggots are some of the most important creatures on the planet. The debriding of wounds isn't even all they do. Whenever someone is murdered, forensic entomologists can use maggots to discover when a person died. It's a complicated process, but it can help in catching the murderer. So whether it's finding justice for the dead or saving a life, maggots can be very helpful.

[Conner]

The rats didn't get this kind of attention.

[Mark Arbour]

The rats didn't get this kind of attention.

 

I know. And they're supposed to be yummy. I hear they taste like rabbits.

[Tiger]

The rats didn't get this kind of attention.

Yes, and indeed such a practice of not giving rats a fair shake is deplorable. I have however eradicated the problem. Rat anyone?

[MikeL]

I missed maggot therapy by just a few years thanks to the development of antibiotics. When I was 13, I suddenly developed sharp pains in my right knee; they were unbearable. After a series of doctors diagnosed my problem as "growing pains", my parents finally found an orthopedic surgeon who would take my case seriously. He diagnosed osteomyelitis, a bacterial bone infection. The cure was surgery to carve out the infected bone, followed by a long series of daily antibiotic injections.

 

My dad's secretary had suffered from osteomyelitis beginning in her teens. She had more than twenty surgeries which left her quite crippled. Her last surgery was followed by antibiotics; all the previous ones had used maggot therapy.

 

We thought then that modern medicine was a miracle, but that was 55 years ago...almost the dark ages compared with today.