Medicinal Maggots

2004/09/16 at 09:53

This is, at once, both cool and revolting:

Maggots aren’t high on most people’s favorite-animals list. But maggots–specifically, the larvae of the green blowfly, Phaenicia sericata–can be helpful for the very reason they horrify. By eating dead tissue at a patient’s wound site, maggots may help decrease the risk of post-operative infections, according to an article in the October 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online.