LadyFish
Admiral
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2003
- Messages
- 6,894
Fri Mar 18, 4:26 PM ET<br />Reuters<br />By Ben Hirschler<br /><br />LONDON (Reuters) - Phyllis Hulme's family and friends were aghast when she told them doctors planned to put maggots on her leg ulcer.<br /><br />"I got some horrified looks. I think they thought: she's old, she doesn't know any better, she's gone a bit gaga," said the 81-year-old, who suffers from diabetes.<br /><br />"But it's been marvelous. I used to feel like screaming sometimes, the pain was so bad, and the first night they were on the pain went."<br /><br />It may sound gruesome, but it turns out that maggots are remarkably efficient at cleaning up infected wounds by eating dead tissue and killing off bacteria that could block the healing process.<br /><br />Maggot medicine, in fact, has a long history. Napoleon's battle surgeon wrote of the healing powers of maggots 200 years ago, and they were put to work during the American Civil War and in the trenches in World War One.<br /><br />With the arrival of modern antibiotics in the 1940s, however, maggots were consigned to the medical dustbin.<br /><br />Now a new generation of physicians, keen to cut back on antibiotic use, is waking up to the creatures' charms. Some believe maggots are one of the most effective ways of treating wounds infected by the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).<br /><br />In a bid to prove the case for maggots conclusively, Dr Pauline Raynor of the University of York is recruiting 600 patients across Britain for the world's biggest ever maggot trial.<br /><br />Her three-year study is being keenly watched by doctors and wound care specialists around the globe.<br /><br />One third of patients -- selected at random -- will be treated with loose maggots, held in place by a dressing; one third with maggots contained in a gauze bag; and one third with hydrogel, a standard wound-cleaning therapy.<br /><br />....the rest of the story <br /><br />
