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Biotech Science

Maggots: Coming to a Hospital Near You 78

Posted by timothy from the maggots-and-leeches-oh-my dept.
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.'"
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Maggots: Coming to a Hospital Near You More

Maggots: Coming to a Hospital Near You

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  • repetitive, much? (Score:4, Informative)

    by lambent ( 234167 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @02:51PM (#12002960)

    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.
    • 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...
      • 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.
    • 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 inser
      • 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.

      • Old stuff (Score:3, Informative)

        by fm6 ( 162816 )

        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 [wikipedia.org]. 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

      • This [hnn.us] 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

  • maggots only eat dead flesh (Score:4, Funny)

    by Naikrovek ( 667 ) <jjohnson&psg,com> on Monday March 21, 2005 @02:51PM (#12002961)
    .. 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
    • 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
      • 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.
    • You have to use the right species. Some species aren't too particular about not eating healthy tissue.
      • 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.

    • .. 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.

  • Gee, Thanks (Score:3, Funny)

    by BigT ( 70780 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @02:56PM (#12003019)
    This is JUST what I wanted to read about while eating lunch. Anyone want my stir-fry and rice?
    • 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...

      • 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 [imdb.com] the fuck you're talking about.
    • 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. (Score:2, Funny)

    by jefft ( 13574 )
    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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
    • "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 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @03:05PM (#12003112)
    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).
    • >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.
      • 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 an

        • 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...

          • 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

            • 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 :)

        • Re:Maggot biobots (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Bloater ( 12932 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @05:45PM (#12005245) Homepage Journal
          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.
        • 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 [economist.com] has some inte
          • 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 tow

    • 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,

  • Oblig (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

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

  • And in other news, apostrophe's... (Score:5, Funny)

    by venomkid ( 624425 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @03:28PM (#12003397)
    According to Yahoo! News maggot's may make their...

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

    *huffhuff*
  • 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.
    • > 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...
  • So now you really can eat your own ass

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

    i.e. Inuits
  • That's where I first learned of it.

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

  • I, for one (Score:1, Funny)

    by JamesP ( 688957 )
    welcome our flesh eating maggot overlords!

    (It had to be said)

  • news? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro@gmaDALIil.com minus painter> on Monday March 21, 2005 @04:28PM (#12004159) Journal
    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.
  • 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 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sicking ( 589500 )
    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.
    • 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.
      • Likely the worms will simply be unable to metamorphize into flies thus eliminating all possiblity of breeding.
        • 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.

  • Chicken (Score:1, Interesting)

    by 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 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by blunte ( 183182 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @05:56PM (#12005376)
    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!?
    • 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 :-(

    • 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
  • 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.
  • 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 (Score:1, Informative)

    by 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.

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