RSS Search

News  Feeds  Tags  Search Shortcuts

FeedsFarm.com > Maggot Therapy!

Source:

Paper Weblog

Language:

English

Tag/Category:

maggots

Domain:

blogs.papermag.com

Search papermag.com:

Maggot Therapy!

16th Nov 2006, 18:32 GMT

Filed under: LA Woman After seeing this recent NY Times article on "Oklahoma Vets Use Maggot Therapy on Horse" I got to thinkin' about maggots. And Maggot Therapy. It's amazing how many entries there are on Google under "Maggot Therapy." There is even a Maggot Therapy Home Page. (Including a section titled "What's New in Maggot Therapy.") And there are some really gnarly images out there too. Who knew? I guess plenty of folks in the medical profession did. And Wikipedia, of course. And my great grandfather who credited maggots for saving his life. Private Erskine Carson fought in the Civil War (for the Union, thank goodness) and was wounded at one of the bloodiest battles fought in Virginia at Manasas/Bull Run. We still have the mini-ball that embedded itself in his side (deflected by a metal canteen that also saved his spinal chord from being sliced in two). He crawled his way along the battlefied and into a chicken coop near a stone house nearby. He spent the night there and was left for dead by the retreating Confederates. Then he was taken by returning Union troops to a hospital in Washington where he was told that it was the maggots that got into his wound that ate the infection that stopped the gangrene that would have resulted in death. So in many ways I owe my life to a gaggle of 19th century Confederate maggots. Horray for fly larvae! Permalink | Email this | Comments

View full story at blogs.papermag.com

Latest news from Paper Weblog: