Maggot therapy requires the right kind of larvae. Only the maggots of blowflies (a family that includes common bluebottles and green bottles) will do the job; they devour dead tissue, whether in an open wound or in a corpse. Some other maggots, on the other hand, such as those of the screwworm eat live tissue. They must be avoided. When blowfly eggs hatch in a patient's wound, the maggots eat the dead flesh where gangrene-causing bacteria thrive. They also excrete compounds that are lethal to bacteria they don't happen to swallow. Meanwhile, they ignore live flesh, and in fact, give it a gentle growth-stimulating massage simply by crawling over it. When they metamorphose into flies, they leave without a trace—although in the process, they might upset the hospital staff as they squirm around in a live patient. When sulfa drugs, the first antibiotics, emerged around the time of World War Ⅱ, maggot therapy quickly faded into
Maggot therapy requires the right kind of larvae. Only the maggots of blowflies (a family that includes common bluebottles and green bottles) will do the job; they devour dead tissue, whether in an open wound or in a corpse. Some other maggots, on the other hand, such as those of the screwworm eat live tissue. They must be avoided. When blowfly eggs hatch in a patient's wound, the maggots eat the dead flesh where gangrene-causing bacteria thrive. They also excrete compounds that are lethal to bacteria they don't happen to swallow. Meanwhile, they ignore live flesh, and in fact, give it a gentle growth-stimulating massage simply by crawling over it. When they metamorphose into flies, they leave without a trace—although in the process, they might upset the hospital staff as they squirm around in a live patient. When sulfa drugs, the first antibiotics, emerged around the time of World War Ⅱ, maggot therapy quickly faded into