Maggots: Coming to a Hospital Near You

Pokinatcha Punk writes "Forget breakthroughs in biotech. According to Yahoo! News maggot's may make their way back into popular medicine. According to the article 'maggots are remarkably efficient at cleaning up infected wounds by eating dead tissue and killing off bacteria that could block the healing process.'"

Comments

repetitive, much?

[lambent]

This 'story' hits the rounds every few months or so. It's distributed only for it's gross-out factor (ewwww, bugs!) and the cool (air-quotes) "maybe all that new-fangled science isn't the be-all-and-end-all" vibe.

I swear, I've read this same thing 20 times before.

Re:repetitive, much?

[biglig2]

In fact, a quick google reveals that this technique has been around since the 1920s.

Cor, 80 years old, just think of how many times this could have been a dupe post...

Re:repetitive, much?

[numbski]

Perhaps, but then this story is older than you might think.

I remember reading about war-between-the-states (for some reason it's not PC to call it the Civil War? WTF?) era use of maggots, especially in situations where a soldier had a cast, and the flesh beneath the cast was itching.

Turns out, it was the dead or infected flesh that was causing the itching, and rather than having the soldier jamming objects down the cast trying to scratch the itch, and as a result disturb the wound, maggots would be inserted into the cast to eat the dead flesh, thus relieving the itching.

I'm sure it goes back further than this though. Anyone?

Re:repetitive, much?

[DrinkingIllini]

The revival of maggots is the story he's referring to. Maggots have been used for this type of stuff since the middle ages at least.

Re:repetitive, much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not directed at the parent, just at the people who think "Civil War" is not PC:

Not "PC" to call it the Civil War? That's news to me. Did the world turn completely upside down within the past decade? We all know that the south was wrong and the north was right. It was a war fought for civil rights. QED: civil war. I have a feeling this whole "war-between-the-states" thing is the very beginning of some kind of revisionist folks who want to take the guilt off of the south. Face it, that generation of southerners fucked up. The current generation is doing a little better but still needs some work. Whites will never be a minority and should never be afforded any breaks. Plain and simple.

Re:repetitive, much?

[tolan-b]

> It was a war fought for civil rights. QED: civil war.

Ehm, civil as in pertaining to a city or state, as in a war within a country. Civil rights have nothing to do with the naming of the war.

Re:repetitive, much?

[seminumerical]

Yeah, the US Army Rangers' manual describes how to do it yourself, by exposing the wound to flies that will lay eggs. Of course since you don't get a carefully selected and bred species, you have to pluck out the maggots once it starts to hurt. Many species will eat dead flesh by preference, but move on to living flesh when they run out.

Re:repetitive, much?

[some guy I know]

We all know that the south was wrong and the north was right. It was a war fought for civil rights.

No.
The initial purpose of the American Civil War was to keep the Union together, when parts of it (several Southern states) wanted to leave.
In the early part of the War, Lincoln wrote that if he could keep the Union together and end the War by freeing all of the slaves, then he would do that; if he could do it by freeing none of the slaves, then he would do that; and if he could do it by freeing some of the slaves, but keeping others in servitude, then he would do that.
It was only later, when the War had dragged on and on, and people (Northerners) were getting tired of it, that he made the war about the ending of slavery; and, even then, he freed slaves only in those states and territories that had rebelled against the Union.

If you ever get the chance, watch Ken Burn's famous PBS documentary, "The Civil War".
It contains a lot of great information (and also some drivel) about the American Civil War.

Whites will never be a minority and should never be afforded any breaks.

People should never be discriminated either for or against because of skin color (or many other factors), regardless of whether they are in the minority or majority.
Non-whites don't deserve any more (or less) "breaks" than so-called whites.
(I use the expression "so-called" because the skin of most "white" people is actually a shade of pinkish tan.)

Re:repetitive, much?

[SgtChaireBourne]

It was only later, when the War had dragged on and on, and people (Northerners) were getting tired of it, that he made the war about the ending of slavery; and, even then, he freed slaves only in those states and territories that had rebelled against the Union

Actually that was to play the morality card and get more help from Europe.

Apropos skin color, slavery in most areas, including Europe was not about skin color, but social and economic status. In Denmark in the 1600 and 1700's there was a very fine line between conscript, prisoner, and slave. Going further back, in all the Nordic countries going from the 1500's to the 700's, there were codified rules about slaves, their status and when they could work their own land. The status could change, slaves could become free men and free men could sell themselves into slavery. Most slaves could buy their freedom within four or five years of work.

Anyway, regarding maggots, that and a lot of non-allopathic medicinal knowledge was put on the back burner shortly after the social changes brought on by WWII and improved travel. In continental Europe in the 1400's there was actually a purge of such knowledge and practitioners of such knowledge by the church as part of a consolidation of power. There was a book, Malleus Maleficarum, "The Witches Hammer" on how to find and destroy these socially influential individuals.

maggots only eat dead flesh

[Naikrovek]

.. which is why i've always wondered why they weren't used in medicine.

oh yeah, now i remember, they're freaking disgusting! that's why! BARF

Re:maggots only eat dead flesh

[slughead]

which is why i've always wondered why they weren't used in medicine.

While in britain, I saw a show on bbc about maggots and diabetes patients.

Diabetes can, in some cases, cause flesh to die and maybe get infected.

The brits figured out to grow flies in a sterile environment, and use their offspring (maggots) to clean out the open wounds (sometimes it's not even open yet, just dead).

Wounds are packed with maggots and covered in gause, and the patient is set on their marry way, never actually feeling what's going on.

Maggots also sterilize the area when they feed, making the wounds safe from infection.

When there's nothing left to eat (all the dead flesh is gone), the maggots are dug out, the area is swabbed out, and the wound is sewn shut.

Re:maggots only eat dead flesh

[Detritus]

You have to use the right species. Some species aren't too particular about not eating healthy tissue.

Re:maggots only eat dead flesh

[Deideldorfer]

I love your comment paired with your sig.

Re:maggots only eat dead flesh

[TFGeditor]

I remember a similar production that discussed the rather large (relatively) industry of companies that grow and sell not only "medical-grade maggots," but leeches, too. The ancient medical treatment of "blood letting" actually has theraputic value for reattached limbs. Leeches applied to a reattached limb promote blood flow and hence enhance the limb's ability to reintegrate and heal.

Re:maggots only eat dead flesh

[jeabu]

The maggots I have seen, after feasting on the yummy, rotting flesh, will then burrow under the skin and begin to eat the healthy tissue, too. The key technique used in medicine is to remove the maggots once they have debrided the dead flesh away and before they begin to burrow.

Re:maggots only eat dead flesh

[gstoddart]

.. which is why i've always wondered why they weren't used in medicine.

oh yeah, now i remember, they're freaking disgusting! that's why! BARF

Well, as I recall, the kinds of wounds they treat with these critters, and the marked better prognosis a patient has makes it far less icky.

Hell, while I'm not advocating running out and getting leeched any time soon, they still get used in modern medicine.

Would I rather save my limb? You betcha! Might I hurl thinking about it? Absolutely.

Isn't this kind of old?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen stuff about this in various news shows over the past 10 years or so.

Re: Isn't this kind of old?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

So why didn't YOU submit it?

Re: Isn't this kind of old?

[myukew]

Guess AC didn't do it because it's news for nerds

Re: Isn't this kind of old?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

So why didn't he submit it when he first found out about it?

And if it we haven't heard about it, isn't it NEW to us?

Re: Isn't this kind of old?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, I've seen dozens of stories on Slashdot over the past few months that I was aware of weeks or months earlier (in one case, years). It just never occurred to me that other [nerds|geeks|engineers|cooldudes] wouldn't already be aware of it...

Gee, Thanks

[BigT]

This is JUST what I wanted to read about while eating lunch. Anyone want my stir-fry and rice?

Re:Gee, Thanks

[TFGeditor]

Survival Training Student: "Sir, what is this white stuff in the soup you made from that dead raccoon in this turtle shell?"

Survival Instructor: "That's rice."

Student: "Why is it moving around like that?"

Instructor: "It's WILD rice. Now eat up."

Leeches too.

[jefft]

Don't forget leeches. They're excellent at draining extra blood out of reattached limbs and digits. These stories make the round every couple of years. Next thing you know doctors will start using healing crystals and homeopathy.

Re:Leeches too.

[superpulpsicle]

As long as the treatment doesn't include Roaches, it's cool. I don't think any doctor would ever come up with a use for them.

Re:Leeches too.

[WormholeFiend]

yea I remember a story about how leeches were used to save John Wayne Bobbitt's reattached member

Re:Leeches too.

[mactov]

Leeches are useful because their saliva has a powerful anticoagulant, as well as a vasodialator, and they have an efficient (if unattractive) delivery system.

For more on the use of leeches in surgery, you can click here:

http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~mcbstaff/graf/AvHm/MedUse main.htm

but I do not recommend clicking it while eating: rather high on the gross-o-meter.

Look before you stitch...

[halber_mensch]

I've heard stories about people being sewn up with spnges and the like still inside their bodies after a successful surgery... this could have some much more disastrous results.

Like, worse than MANSQUITO.

Re:Look before you stitch...

[Hallow]

And it's pretty hard to be worse than Mansquito...

Pictoral Reference

[fulldecent]

For a reference to this technology, here are some pictures of the process:

• http://entomology.unl.edu/images/blowflies/blowfly mags1.jpg
• http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/PAT/recs/crop/scrnm gt.jpg
• http://www.sids.org.uk/fsid/maggot.jpg
• https://id294.securedata.net/ultimateamerican/Merc hant2/graphics/tshirts/maggot_big.jpg
• http://www.yamagiku.co.jp/pathology/image/201/5.jp g

Re:Pictoral Reference

[ikkonoishi]

No no no

These are what you wanted.

http://www.larve.com/Images/images_legulcers/maggo ts_amputation.jpg
http://www.larve.com/Images/images_legulcers/maggo ts_foot_ulcer.jpg
http://www.larve.com/Images/images_legulcers/magot s_small-cavity_wound.jpg
http://www.snopes.com/photos/maggots.asp

Re:Pictoral Reference

[jbrader]

Nastier and more educational than goatse or tubgirl.

In other news...

[DrKyle]

leeches, squirmy and icky, taking blood from hapless victims are good for you too! Sometimes a doctor will put one on you if they've reattached a body part (poor John Wayne Bobbit).

Oh wait, that's old news, just like this story.

There once was a man named Bobbitt...

[AtariAmarok]

"leeches, squirmy and icky, taking blood from hapless victims are good for you too! Sometimes a doctor will put one on you if they've reattached a body part (poor John Wayne Bobbit)."

Are you sure that the leech re-attached the body part? I could have sworn that I read before that the leech attached itself and acted as a replacement for the body part.

Maggot biobots

[G4from128k]

Maggots (or some other little parasitic vermiform beastie) would seem to be an excellent starting point for medical biobots. They have all the machinery for motion inside a living body and a neat little tool for slurping up flesh. Perhaps a bit of genetic engineering would give the critters a taste for tumor tissues or fat cells (and an abhorrence for critical tissues such as nerve cells, muscle tissue, or blood vessels).

Re:Maggot biobots

[DaveJay]

>Perhaps a bit of genetic engineering would give
>the critters a taste for tumor tissues or fat
>cells (and an abhorrence for critical tissues
>such as nerve cells, muscle tissue, or blood
>vessels).

Seems practical, as we ourselves seem to have a genetically engineered abhorrence for maggots.

Re:Maggot biobots

[hankwang]

Seems practical, as we ourselves seem to have a genetically engineered abhorrence for maggots.

I always wondered why. I am usually not very picky on food, at least when it is about organ meat, meat from furry animals, or things with a strong smell. I even ate Swedish surströmming, i.e. fermented herring with a truly repulsive smell.

But finding a couple of tiny white worms in say a prepared mushroom dish makes me loose all my appetite, despite my rational me keeping telling me that they are cooked and dead and consist of healthy protein. Is it nature or nurture, this abhorrence?

Re:Maggot biobots

[david.given]

Maggots (or some other little parasitic vermiform beastie) would seem to be an excellent starting point for medical biobots. They have all the machinery for motion inside a living body and a neat little tool for slurping up flesh.

Actually, most maggots will only eat dead flesh, which is why this technique works so well. If your patient has a gangrenous wound, you stick some (very clean, lab-grown, guaranteed sterile) maggots in and they'll hunt out ever piece of decomposing flesh, leaving you with a nice, clean wound. It's a nice, cheap, effective low-tech solution, although you have to be damned careful that your maggots really have come from the lab and not from some disease-ridden blowfly that happened to be passing. Plus there's the ick factor.

Of course, you don't want to pick the wrong kind --- screwfly larvae, for example, eat living tissue. There's an old urban legend about someone who had a screwfly lay eggs in his nose and by the time they figured out what was wrong they'd eaten half his brain. Ew.

Re:Maggot biobots

[TykeClone]

I even ate Swedish surströmming, i.e. fermented herring with a truly repulsive smell.

Is that related to lutefisk? That's the most disgusting part of my norske heritage - some form of fish cooked in lye and eaten with butter.

Makes you wonder about some of those norwegians that emigrated...

Re:Maggot biobots

[Bloater]

It is your association between maggots and refuse. People make decisions on where they spend their time and what they consume on the principle of "contamination". Maggots are contaminated by liking refuse, food with maggots in is thus contaminated. Cooking is not felt to be enough to decontaminate. Experiments with dipping cockroaches into orange juice showed that even a thoroughly disinfected (recently deceased) cockroach "contaminates" orange juice by being dipped in it.

I myself will happily rinse a used glass and re-use it, but if it has been put into a dishwasher which has dirty items in it (even if they are nowhere near the glass), I will normally get a fresh glass - I feel it is contaminated, though I know it isn't.

These associations to decide what is a contaminant and how much effort is required to decontaminate is mostly determined by how you perceived your parents reaction to them to be. IE a fishermans son will probably not care about a maggot in his dinner if he can just pull it out (decontamination is trivial as he saw his father happily warm maggots in his mouth).

I intend to try to react according to available scientific evidence in front of my children when I have them (regardless of how I feel about things myself), since it is important that they be able to make more realistic judgements about the world around them than I am capable of. While I *can* react more sensibly than I feel, I want my children to be able to react sensibly without effort so they can confidently be highly effective in their personal business and business business.

Re:Maggot biobots

[hankwang]

Is [Swedish surströmming] related to lutefisk?

No, it's a different thing. I can't imagine that lutefisk (I don't think I've tasted it) is as smelly as surströmming. Lutefisk is at least sterile. Surströmming was invented in an area of Sweden where salt for preservation was expensive. They make it by putting whole herrings, including their intestines, into airtight cans with very little salt. Store these cans at room temperature for a couple of months. Due to the gas produced by the bacteria the cans kind of look like pressurized balls. Imagine for yourself what this smells like.

Re:Maggot biobots

[TykeClone]

Ugh - Like I said, you've got to wonder about those nordic types and what they eat.

They make nasty stuff like that, but then you also get wonderful stuff like kringla and lefsa. Must be some sort of a bipolar food disorder :)

Oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they eat dead apostrophes and kill off spelling mistakes that could block the reading process?

And in other news, apostrophe's...

[venomkid]

According to Yahoo! News maggot's may make their...

And in other news, apostrophes are still being used for pluralization... !!!!!@$(*!#(_$

*huffhuff*

ObQuote

[ReverendLoki]

David: How are those maggots?
Michael: Huh?
David: Maggots, Michael. You're eating maggots. How do they taste?

'Cause you know you were thinking about this quote anyways...

Re:ObQuote

[drinkypoo]

Yes, the ten or fifteen slashdotters who saw that movie back in the day by chance, and the hundred or whatever slashdotters who are from santa cruz and had no chance to escape seeing that movie were definitely thinking about that. The rest of slashdot has no idea what the fuck you're talking about.

This has to be a record

[jmccay]

I remember seeing shows on maggots used to eat dead skin off wounds since the late 80s early 90s. This is extremely old news. To beat slashdot to it, there is also a resurgence in using leechs to drain fluids.

Re:This has to be a record

[Chemisor]

> I remember seeing shows on maggots used to eat
> dead skin off wounds since the late 80s early 90s.

You have such good memory to remember the "gay nineties". I can't seem to remember much of anything before the Great War myself...

They make god nutrition too

[jago25_98]

So now you really can eat your own ass

( http://www.zetatalk.com/food/tfood12j.htm )

i.e. Inuits

How could you miss this in Gladiator?

[monkeyserver.com]

That's where I first learned of it.

"No, they will clean. You will see."

I, for one

[JamesP]

welcome our flesh eating maggot overlords!

(It had to be said)

news?

[FidelCatsro]

I seem to remember whatching a BBC documentry on maggots cleaning wounds around 8 or 9 years ago .The story was fairly identical , although the BBC documentry whos name escapes me , went into far more depth , i belive it was tested in a hospital aswell.
I seem to remember the main advantage was the natural anestetic produced by the maggots as they feast on the effected tissue.Extremly gross and would really freak me out i imagine , but its supposed to be amazingly effective and have a far greater rate of recovery.

Re:news?

[rev_sanchez]

what about maggot poop?

apostrophe

[Hamstij]

Can someone please tell Timothy the ins and outs of apostrophe use?

Maggots is a simple plural. It does not need an apostrophe. Is it really that difficult?

Patents

[sicking]

This sounds great for developing countries on a tight budget. (Well, medicine seems to be on a tight budget all over the world these days).

Anyone wants to take bets on how long it'll take for some company to create a genetically engineered worm that is slightly more efficient and patents it? And then somehow forces this new worm onto doctors all over the world, for a handsome fee of course.

Re:Patents

[Grishnakh]

Don't forget; this new worm will somehow breed with natural ones, so that after a few generations, ALL the worms are carrying the company's patented genetic code. So everyone will have to pay royalties for using the worms, no matter where they got them from.

Re:Patents

[ikkonoishi]

Likely the worms will simply be unable to metamorphize into flies thus eliminating all possiblity of breeding.

Re:Patents

[Grishnakh]

Why would they do that? It'd be in their best interest to design them so they can turn into flies, and then wipe out the unmodified population in some way in favor of their own. Then they can make sure everyone pays them royalties, no matter where they get their maggots from.

Re:Patents

[witte]

Reminiscent of Monsanto's Franken-canola...

Chicken

[Anonymous Coward]

My first real experience with maggots was some guy eating a chicken leg and where he had bit the leg it was all magoty.

I was only 8 and it creeped the fsck out of me.

(What was that movie... poltergeist maybe?)

Britain, Home of the Leg Ulcer

[blunte]

From the article:

Britain alone spends some 600 million pounds ($1.15 billion) a year treating leg ulcers, which affect 1 percent of the population and can persist for years.

What the heck!?

Re:Britain, Home of the Leg Ulcer

[ProphetPX777]

I *personally* MYSELF do HAVE leg ulcers, currently, and i would NEVER want to consider this "maggots" treatment ... only because it freaks me out and i do not think they'd be all that clean ...

basically, "Ewwwwwwww"

sighs..

leg ulcers (even non-diabetic ones like i have) are a royal pain in the ass and last for YEARS even when treated by professionals, properly :-(

Re:Britain, Home of the Leg Ulcer

[blunte]

How fascinating...

I made the above post shortly after the article was made available. My brief post was not redundant. My post stayed at +3 Interesting for days.

Now, mysteriously, it is "redundant".

Who comes back to an old post and moderates it as redundant? This is exactly the kind of crap that caused me to quit posting, and even quit reading Slashdot for a while.

The moderation system is broken, and some of the moderates are just plain jerks. Perhaps it's some of the kids who were regularly beat up on the schoolyard, and now they seek out their revenge with their mighty moderator sword. Sad.

This is my last post on Slashdot.

Re:Britain, Home of the Leg Ulcer

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post consisted of a regurgitation of a factoid (ALREADY STATED IN THE ARTICLE), and you giving a reaction of disbelief. It is the epitome of redundant. We don't give a damn that you find it of interest to regurgitate. The world does not revolve around your opinion. If you don't amuse, inform, or stimulate discussion, its pointless. The moderating jerks were the ones who upmodded it, probably your cow-orkers.

Old stuff

[fm6]

I remember reading about war-between-the-states (for some reason it's not PC to call it the Civil War? WTF?) era use of maggots...

"Civil war" is not PC if you're from the south, because it implies that the pro-Confederate people were acting seditiously. Heaven forfend!

Bernard Cornwell, in his novels about the Napoleonic wars, has British soldiers using maggots to treat wounds. If that's at all historical, the practice probably dates back from prehistory, since it would have been taken up the first time somebody noticed the effects of maggots on tissue.

But that's a big "if". Modern medical maggots have been around for a few decades, but they're not something a nineteenth-century soldier would have had access to. They're carefully raised on a sterile broth, because maggots in the wild carry some really nasty germs. Putting wild maggots in a wound would be asking for a really bad infection. Which, in the pre-antibiotic era, was a death sentence.

Re:Old stuff

[ikkonoishi]

Civil war is perfectly acceptable in the south.

Re:Old stuff

[fm6]

Get back to me when you've graduated from simple-minded contradiction to actual argument.

The War of Northern Agression.

[UranusReallyHertz]

...Is what I've heard it called by some confederate sympahtisers. Very expressive name.

Real pictures of maggots

[DigiShaman]

http://www.unicat-communications.de/zentral/bildar /darlmcbride.jpg

http://www.fda.gov/oc/whiteoak/whiteoakdedication/ orrinhatch.jpg

http://hcc.musc.edu/images/hollings.jpe

sure thing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll let you know what it's like since you won't get there for a while.

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

it had nothing to do with civil rights. It had more to due with the Federal govt in the north asserting it's authority over the tarrif paying south.

well..

[compro01]

leeches are still used in moderen medicine. sometimes old is a good thing. many old herbal remidies have been found that they do really work, though a roughly equal number have been debunked, so take all with a grain of salt and chew well.

maggot's?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maggot's what is making a comeback?

The many names of "the war"

[hubie]

This is a nice piece that goes into the different names. These include (but are not limited to):

Civil War

War Between the States

War of the Rebellion

War of Northern Aggression

War for Southern Freedom

The Recent Unpleasantness

Disgust: An evolutionary Defense Mechanism

[vivin]

Disgust is an evolutionary mechanism for disease-avoidance. It is pretty much a gut/instinctive reaction. For example, we feel squeamish when we see something gross (rotting meat, dead things, infected wounds, dog crap, and other disgusting stuff). All of these sources of disgust are also potential sources of disease. So evolutionarily speaking, individuals that didn't mess around with potential sources of disease survived, while the others that decided to mess with it, didn't.

This article has some interesting information.

Re:Disgust: An evolutionary Defense Mechanism

[hankwang]

Of course it makes sense that it is healthy to stay away from potential sources of diseases. I just find it so strange that rational knowledge about the actual disease-causing potential doesn't win from gut feelings. I also don't understand how these instincts can be genetically determined for things that are related to disease in such a artificial (chemical colors rather than a putrid smell).

Anyway, about this disgust-test, it seems that I'm not that sensitive. No problems with bugs, slime, and dirty towels (hey, I've lived as a bachelor during the past 12 years, I'm used to a few things :). I only feel yucky about skin diseases and open wounds, and the type of effects in horror movies.

Still use them in Canada

[lux55]

I'm pretty sure they still use maggots for exactly this purpose (as well as leeches for other purposes) in hospitals here in Canada (my girlfriend is a nurse, although she's now in labour & delivery so she's nowhere near the maggot- or leech-using floors). Aside from the "eww" factor, who cares? If it works as well, then it's more natural than an equivalent maggophobiaxycillin, so I'd say go for it.

I'd want to bring my camera, so I could show my friends afterwards. :)

On Maggots

[Anonymous Coward]

Be careful to use the right kind. Some maggots eat just dead flesh. The waste ammonia then sterilizes the wound.

Screwfly maggots are EVIL, they've been eliminated from the western US by a US govt program that releases sterile males into the wild. females only breed once, if they breed with a sterile male, it's wasted. Screwflies lay their eggs in open wounds, and the maggots bore into dead and living tissue. Humans and cattle have died from them, if they bore into important organs.