Posted on 10/15/2021 11:42:03 AM PDT by nickcarraway
A tiny container of maggots made a world of difference for an Arizona woman facing surgery.
Dr. Erika Huston at Tuscon Medical Center said the patient had severe wounds on both sides of both ankles that became infected.
Although the original plan called for surgery to clean maggots and dead tissue from the wounds, Huston told KOLD she "took the dressings off the wound the next day and the maggots had cleaned the wounds significantly."
(Excerpt) Read more at ksbw.com ...
Napoleon’s Army used them. Used extensively in our Civil War.
Keep Democrats out of operation rooms!
It’s coming. Already cancelling transplants. Even when a donor hasn’t been stabbed. Waiting for the VA to withhold care.
Oh, and leaches have valid medical uses as well.
Our ancestors were not stupid.
They knew any number of valid treatments.
Their mistake seemed to be more along the line of "worked here, must be good for everything".
I know current doctors who do the same thing.
Years ago I read the autobiography of a Marine who earned the MOH by jumping on TWO Japanese grenades on Iwo Jima. His right arm was an absolute mess of frag wounds, clearly he was lucky to be alive. On the hospital ship, they put maggots on his wounds and encased his arm in a cast. When he got to the Navy fleet hospital in Hawaii, they removed the cast, and everyone on the ward vomited from the smell. But his wounds were clean.
They have been doing this since...well, since forever.
This is really nothing new. Its been used in the diabetic world for decades.
Oh, and leaches have valid medical uses as well.
Bloodletting benefits if one removes the right amount of blood.
Men who eat chocolate or meat consume more iron than they need.
I read a publication that measured stored iron and triglyceride levels.
They found that people who have slightly more iron than necessary have higher triglycerides and longer waist circumference. So, even if one has a small amount of unnecessary iron, it’s beneficial to remove it.
I donate blood every two years.
If blood ferritin is less than 70 ng/ml, the person has an iron deficiency.
Groups at higher risk for the wuhan coronavirus have more stored iron.
Even the Romans used Maggots for this purpose. They only eat the dead tissue thus preventing gangrene. From what I’ve heard they stink and they itch like crazy such that the patient needs local anesthesia not to feel it. But they do a really good job of cleaning out wounds.
Yep, my Dad even talked to me about the benefits of maggots when I was a kid. Stuff he’d learned from USAF survival training.
They must be recycling decade old stories. Leeches and maggots have been used successfully for awhile. Whats old is new again.
In the US Civil War, northern forces had abundant antiseptics in their field hospitals that the south did not have in theirs. However, mortality was higher in the north, because maggots cleaned out the southerner’s wounds.
Other startling discoveries for the time was that it was a *very* bad idea to quarter wounded soldiers in horse stables, as there was a very good chance for them to get Tetanus.
Most Civil War injuries were simple to treat. If the bullet hit the limb, amputate. If it hit the torso, they were going to die. Sometimes they survived but it was the exception.
However, the US Civil War was a godsend for brain surgery. The last big breakthrough was when French King Henry II was injured by a javelin while jousting. But in the Civil War, many still living soldiers with head and brain injuries made it to the medical area and lived for a while before dying or not.
This gave surgeons lots of opportunities to experiment on living patients. And they learned lots of things.
leaches and maggots are the cause of the decay of our country...
Seventh grade Science class had a field trip to thr US Army Medical Museum and Library in downtown Washington DC. Apparently our science teacher had some connections to arrange this.
Fascinating and often gruesome exhibits in spaces devoid of all the fancy displays. Just rows upon rows of specimen jars from gallon size to a glass keg housing the remains transferred from the original whiskey barrel in which it was transported to DC. Small glued on labels with hand inked lettering and typewritten detail descriptions. Closer to Raiders of The Lost Ark warehouse than any modern exhibits. All of which added to the allure for young boys. Dim and dusty.
Historic medical instruments,Civil War gear looked more like a carpenters tool kit with a few surgical tools.
from wiki:
The AMML collection had its origins in the federal government’s decision in 1862, during the American Civil War, to begin a collection of items of medical and surgical interest related to the treatment of Union Army wounded and sick in the war. At first focused on diseases related to the military (a major cause of death and incapacity during that war), it grew over the next two decades to include a wider array of samples for the use of military medical investigators. In 1888 the collection was formally opened to civilian medical researchers as well.[4]
The collection resided in a variety of buildings prior to the construction of the AMML building in 1887, including Ford’s Theatre. It remained in the AMML building until October 1968, at which point it was dispersed.[4] Its principal successor is the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring, Maryland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Medical_Museum_and_Library
This is as old as the hills
My dad back in the 1930 broke his shoulder and it got infected
They bored a hole in to his shoulder and put in a vial of maggots to clean out the infection..
he told me this story in the mid 1960’s when I was a kid and I thought he was pulling my leg
“OMG. We’re regressing to the dark ages.
Can leaches aid in blood letting?”
It is now a real thing in “Modern” Medicine.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=leech+therapy&t=lm&ia=web
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