Maggot Therapy is Approved by Usfda

The first known person to use maggot therapy was John Forner Zacharias. He was a physician in the American civil war and later wrote, “During my service at Danville Virginia, I first used maggots to remove dead tissue in hospital gangrene with imminent satisfaction.” He went on to say he felt sure it saved many lives and his patients had rapid recoveries. Afterwards maggot therapy fell out of favor until World War 1. At that time, two soldiers who had lain on the battle field for seven days with open wounds came under the care of army doctor, William S. Baer. Their wounds were crawling with maggots. When Baer cleaned away the maggots he found “the most beautiful pink granulation tissue you can imagine.”

When Baer returned to John Hopkins University School of Medicine as a professor (before antibiotics) wound mortality was high. He decided to try an experiment. He selected 21 patients and surgically removed as much dead tissue as possible, staunched bleeding, and filled the wounds with maggots. He replaced the maggots every few days. Dead and dying tissue was consumed by maggots and pink healthy tissue developed. All twenty one patients were completely healed. Before Baer’s death in 1931 he had convinced his fellow physicians of the value of maggot therapy. Hundreds of papers were written on the subject and laboratories began production of sterile maggots but with the invention of sulfur drugs and later antibiotics maggot therapy, understandably was forgotten.

Today, with the resistance of microbes to antibiotics and the problems of failing immune systems maggot therapy is making a come back. Meet Ronald A. Sherman,assistant professor of medicine at UC-Irvine, when a patient came to him with wounds filled with maggots, Sherman was disgusted, then he saw an odd thing. Healthy tissue was growing into the wound. Sherman’s interest was activated. He says people don’t think about maggot therapy until all other methods fail which he finds troublesome. Maggot therapy is a cheap effective treatment so why delay? No anesthesia is required, there are no side effects and the wound heals with little scaring.

Sherman has treated hundreds of patients, many of them diabetics with gangrenous,ulcerated legs. Many doctors and patients are pleased with the results. Patients facing amputations are happy with any treatment that will allow them to keep their limbs. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration have approved the marketing of maggots and leeches as medical treatments. The main problem as far as pharmaceutical companies are concerned is that maggot therapy is cheap.  They can’t expect to make a lot of money off the treatment as opposed to all the expensive medicine on the market.

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