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Tuesday, 17 January 2012


Maggots can heal wounds faster than surgery
Maggots can heal wounds faster than surgery


Maggots can clean wounds faster than standard surgery

Medical researchers in France have found that maggots can clean wounds faster than standard surgery.

Although it sounds gross, maggots have been used to clean wounds for hundreds of years, especially in remote locations during wars.

Maggots are the larvae of flies, which usually lay their eggs in dead animals. The maggots release a chemical into the rotting flesh, which gradually breaks down enough so that they can feed off it. Since maggots don’t eat live flesh, this means that they can be used to clear away any dead or rotten flesh around a wound.

In tests with 119 wounded men in hospital, medics treated half of them with surgery and half with maggots. After a week, there was less dead flesh in the wounds treated by maggots. The wounds had also healed up more than in the patients treated with surgery.

Strangely, even though all of the patients in the experiment were blindfolded, around half from each group said that they had a feeling like something crawling around in their wound.





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4 Comments


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  • Chloe5000 (Age 10) wrote on Tuesday, 17 January 2012 @ 16:37

    that is gross i would stick with surgury

  • Ellie-mo (Age 13) wrote on Tuesday, 17 January 2012 @ 17:01

    Eww, i wud definetly not like maggots crawling around inside me!! YUCK!

  • HUMPH9 (Age 9) wrote on Thursday, 19 January 2012 @ 18:23

    EWW! WHAT NEXT

  • Dolling (Age 11) wrote on Friday, 20 January 2012 @ 21:15

    it is gross but amazing i would still stick with surgury thats the best option i say.