Maggots For Wound Healing

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There is a little known method used by American Special Forces to clean wounds that may be of great benefit to Survivalists in the event of an emergency. This is by intentionally introducing live maggots into the soft, damaged tissue wound. This process provides an effective cleaning of the tissue within the wound, successful disinfection and generally promotion faster healing.

Throughout the pages of history this theory has been employed from the Mayan Indians to the Aboriginal tribes of Australia. The process can be traced back even further to the Renaissance era where military men would develop a wound and maggots started to colonize it. The doctors of these men would notice a marked reduction in the mortality rate associated with those soldiers when compared with those that never developed the maggots.

Even during our own American Civil war a Doctor Joseph Jones noted that neglected wounds which filled quickly with maggots improved drastically after the worms destroyed the dead tissues leaving only the good surrounding areas unaffected. The techniques continued to be recognized even up into the 1st World War. It was shown that when a soldier was found after being left on the battlefield for an extended period of time their flesh wounds would rapid improvement after application of maggot to the affected area. Research has shown that in the 40’s there were over 300 hospitals that used maggots in their wound programs. This strain of green bottle flies used eventually was nickname “Medical Maggots”.

To use this method you would need to wrap the maggots in a dressing which is placed over the patient’s wounds for several days. Although the maggots may be permitted to move freely within the wound the dressing must be maintained in such as manner as to allow air to permeate the material thus providing oxygen to sustain the maggots’ life. It is impossible for the maggots to reproduce within the wound since they are only in the larval stage at this point and their reproduction cycle is reserved for the adult flies. It is of vital importance however that when performing the final cleaning of the wound you must make certain that all maggots have been removed.

The basic idea of all this is for a large number of maggots to consume the necrotic or damaged tissue while leaving the healthy tissue alone. The great part of using maggots for disinfecting a wound is that they are especially effective even on antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Maggots have been shown to destroy a wide range of bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus and group A and B streptococci.

So now you have an effective method of infection control and wound healing that could be accomplished under many less then desirable conditions. Use this information carefully and do some additional research on your own.

By Joseph Parish

www.survival-training.info

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Source by Joseph Parish

The Editor