DR. MAGGOT

Maggots are larvae of flies. Flies lay eggs on decaying tissues. Maggots come out from the eggs in warm weather and they instantly nosh on and develop on where the flies laid their eggs.

For many years, maggots have been renowned to clean wounds. Maggots feed on rotten flesh and leave the wound clean. Now, if maggots came from flies, does it mean that maggots are not clean too? If maggots are not clean, then why can they clean wounds? Wouldn’t the wounds be infected?

Since maggots came from flies, they’re not really clean creatures; Scientists are now raising sterile flies—the Greenbottle fly, Lucilia Sericata, which would eventually produce sterile maggots. They put the flies in a lab with a sterile milieu and when the flies lay eggs, they separate the maggots and put it in another sterile setting. They are then applied to the wound when they are still smaller than a grain of rice. They will be removed after two days when they have grown to more than a centimeter.

Maggot therapy is not new. It’s as old as the civil war. Mayans and Aboriginal tribes in Australia have reported of the successful maggot treatments.

Recent studies revealed that maggots heal wounds than a professional surgeon. Maggot therapy has been made known to speed up debridement of necrotic wounds which leads to fast healing. The enzymes maggots secrete are able to kindle the growth of human fibroblasts. These enzymes contain a substance, allantoin, which gives the patient a soothing effect on the skin.

Of course, we can’t avoid the “yuck” factor when we hear of the creepy maggots crawling in and eating the rotten tissues of our wounds. This factor could be a barrier to the usage of the therapy. Researchers who have been scrutinizing the advantages of this kind of treatment alleged that we should ignore the “yuck” factor for the betterment of our health.