Subject: Re: Maggot Debridement Therapy

From: [email-masked] (Robert Allen)
Date: 18 Jan 1995 17:45:40 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Andrew T Piskorski) writes:
+
+In today's Wall Street Journal, on the front page center column, there's 
+an article on "Maggot Debridement Therapy [or Treatment, I forget]".
+
+The concept is that maggotts eat only rotten flesh and secret an ammonia
+based disinfectant, so therefore they are good for gangrenous wounds. 
+Says that Dr. Ronald Sherman became interested in this old therapy (was
+used, or at least noted, by Baron D.J. Larrey, Napolean's battlefield
+surgeon) when he noticed that patients with untreated wounds containing
+(gasp!) maggots were much healthier and healed with less scarring than
+might be expected. 
+
+The process Dr. Sherman uses is a little more complex, but this obviously
+has promise for survival medicine type situations where hospital care is
+not available. 
+
+For those of you in sci.med, I wonder how accepted this procedure is.

    I've been taught about this procedure in a Survival Medicine
    3 day course sponsored  by Earthbound  Wilderness Medicine
    in  San Jose  CA. The teacher  was an ex-Special Forces
    medical officer who has reportedly published  a paper
    on the theory.  Apparently the treatment works quite well,
    but it does need  to be managed.  For one thing,  maggots
    will eat healthy flesh once all the diseased flesh is
    eaten.  Management consists of counting  the  maggots and
    watching the wound to  ensure  that you  get  all the
    maggots  out at the right  time.  This treatment is  also
    documented in the Special Forces  Medical Handbook, published
    by Palladine Press, which  I sell.  I don't recall if it's
    mentiond in Ditch Medicine, which also discusses advanced 
    primitive medicine.

    For  those interested Earthbound is reportedly planning another
    Surivival  Medicine  Course  June 16-18, 1995.  They also
    periodically teach a  2 day Wilderness Medicine  Course.