Old-school cures making a comeback
The first time I ever watched the movie Gladiator, I was confused by the scene where Maximus is captured by the slavers. The scene shows his arm where he had been slashed covered in what looked like pieces of rice. I was doubly confused when his friend says “No. They will clean it. Wait and see.” How could pieces of rice clean a wound? Well, I learned later that they were maggots. (Hey, give me a break, I was in high school.) A lot of people are repulsed by this scene, and I was no exception. This revulsion is compounded by internet rumors of maggots eating brains while a person is still alive. (That link is extremely gross; you’ve been warned.)
The truth of the matter is that maggots are useful little creatures, and the only flesh they consume is already dead. Since maggots only consume dead flesh, it makes sense that they would be used to clean especially nasty wounds. Often synonymous with death, maggots can breath fresh life into limbs once thought lost. It is basically only in modern times that maggots have gone out of vogue in the medical community for more modern alternatives like antibiotics.
Well now they’re making a comeback along with medicinal leeches. Maggots can clean particularly nasty wounds better than almost anything else out there. They can prevent infection and allow new tissue to grow in place of the old.
As for maggots, they are unparalleled in their ability to clean festering, gangrenous wounds. For diabetics and others whose wounds fail to heal, maggots, pressed into dying flesh by wire-mesh bandages, can save a limb and speed healing.
The modern champion of the using maggots as a tool to heal wounds is a World War I doctor named William Baer who once saw two soldiers left wounded on the battlefield for days without care. When their clothes were removed, thousands of maggots were found in their wounds, but once the maggots were cleaned out, Dr. Baer discovered clean, pink, new flesh growing.
Leeches are also staging a comeback for the unique properties that they bring to recovery rooms. Leeches secrete a few different things, all of which are useful when re-attaching severed appendages:
Leeches naturally inject patients with a potent chemical cocktail that includes an anticoagulant, an anesthetic, an antibiotic and a substance that dilates blood vessels. This cocktail encourages fast bleeding to empty the appendage of extra blood, reducing pressure and allowing veins to form on their own.
In 20 minutes, a leech is usually engorged and removed, though bleeding from the wound may continue for up to 24 hours. If an appendage is large, several leeches are sometimes used at once, Dr. Levin said, adding, “I’ll use one to three leeches every couple of hours.”
[...]
“It won’t attach if there’s not good arterial blood coming in, and sometimes that tells me that I need to go back in,” Dr. Minkin said.
For some reason I can just imagine a prescription being issued for fresh leeches:
apply 1 leech q3° prn ud
#4
refills x0
Haha! Anyway, it’s nice to see some very useful age-old remedies making a comeback. One can hope that the societal hang-ups associated with such useful creatures will eventually be a thing of the past.
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you were in high school when Glatiator came out? Young’un.
I remember actually talking about this in biology class way back in the day when I was in high school. Always wondered if they would ever see mainstream use…
Comment by Happysin — August 26, 2005 @ 10:43 pm
Yessir. I think I was in tenth grade. So you can roughly guess my age now. (Shhhh, don’t tell, else no one will take me seriously. ;))
Comment by Rian — August 26, 2005 @ 11:26 pm