[egarvue]

This is just so sick to think about...and yet it works. I just hope my doctor doesn't start taking any more of these "old techniques" to heart. "Now, we're just going to apply a few leeches here, son, to get rid of the Bad Humours in your blood...."

[Williams]

I remember a story by someone who had this treatment and the maggots were escaping from their bandage. Nothing wrong with the approach, but does anyone know how long it takes the maggots to turn into flies? Also, don't they eliminate into the wound as they eat?

[Johnny_Cipher]

Figures. Somebody saw "Gladiator" one too many times.

[SpaceBar]

It's funny how these necrotic tissue feeding maggot stories surface periodically as if it's something new. People get grossed out and then the story goes away until next time when there is a slow news day. Been going on a long time. Get over it folks.

[MineralMan]

Yawn. Not news. They've been using maggots to debride wounds for a long, long time. They save lots of lives and help prevent lots of amputations.

Someone should clue this hospital in.

[PoorMuttly]

Allowing them to clean-up a wound was one of the ways our boys survived imprisonment as POWs in Vietnam.

[Central_Floridian]

My neighbor told me her about her uncle who was a GI in WWII and was captured by the Nazis. He was badly wounded in the leg by an artillery round and was denied medical treatment. He put maggots into his wound and believed that was what saved his leg or perhaps his life.

[freedumb2003]

Based on the headline, I thought this was about some sort of Dean-Kerry split on a key voting group.

[SAMWolf]

DARN! I thought this was gonna be about the Clinton's

[elli1]

Just read about maggots in frostbite wounds earlier today. A couple of the climbers on the French team that made the first ascent on Annapurna got maggots in their wounds on the long delayed return back to France.

From True Summit by David Roberts:

...Surrounded by doctors, the patient lay still as nurses unwrapped the dressings on his feet. The head physician offered soothing words: ''Maurice, be brave while I change this last bit of gauze.''

Suddenly Herzog heard a chorus of cries. Doctors and nurses alike jerked back involuntarily. ''They're jumping!'' someone screamed. ''They're jumping!''

The maggots that had infested Herzog's feet in Nepal had gorged on his dead flesh. Now, each one as thick as a pencil, at the moment of release from their prison of gauze, they leapt into the air in every direction....

[duckman]

I'll read this later, just had mini rice with tomato gravy.

[Inyokern]

You are all on cleanup detail, maggots!