It's no joke. Maggots (fly larvae) have been used for wound
cleaning for centuries. The correct terminology for this method
today is Maggot Debridement Therapy (MDT), which involves the
use of live maggots to clean wounds that aren't healing as well
as they should. I've read that this strange-sounding treatment
first came to medical attention when Napoleon's surgeon general
observed that soldiers' wounds that became infested with maggots
healed better than others. MDT was used routinely in the early
years of the 20th century but faded from the medical scene after
the development of antibiotics and more modern surgical
techniques. It made a comeback, of sorts, after a series of
clinical trials in California that began in 1989 found that MDT
is useful for cleaning certain types of wounds, primarily bed
sores, diabetic foot ulcers and surgical wounds that are slow to
heal. In 2004 the FDA began regulating medical maggots. It
permits the production and marketing of a species of green blow
flies (Phaenicia sericat