BIOTHERAPY

Biotherapy is the use of living animals for medical treatment or as an adjunct to medical diagnosis.

Biotherapy encompasses ,among other things, maggot therapy (maggot debridement therapy, larva therapy), leech therapy (hirudotherapy), honey bee therapy (apitherapy), ichthiotherapy (fish therapy), pet therapy, detection dogs, medical response dogs, phage therapy, and helminthic therapy (worm therapy).

Maggots, leeches & fish have been used to save limbs & lives. Dogs can detect cancer, alert to medical problems, and raise the spirits. Bee venom has been reported to help in neurological and musculoskeletal diseases.

Maggot Therapy

Maggot therapy (also known as Maggot Debridement Therapy (MDT), larval therapy, larva therapy, or larvae therapy) is a type of biotherapy involving the intentional introduction by a health care practitioner of live, disinfected maggots (fly larvae) into the non-healing skin and soft tissue wound(s) of a human or animal for the purpose of selectively cleaning out only the necrotic (dead) tissue within a wound in order to promote wound healing.

History of Maggot Therapy

Written records have documented that maggots have been used since antiquity as a wound treatment.There are reports of the successful use of maggots for wound healing by Mayan Indians and Aboriginal tribes in Australia. There also have been reports of the use of maggot treatment in the Renaissance times. During warfare, many military physicians observed that soldiers whose wounds had become colonized with maggots experienced significantly less morbidity and mortality than soldiers whose wounds had not become colonized. These physicians included Napoleon’s surgeon general, Baron Dominique Larrey, who reported during France's Egyptian campaign in Syria, 1829, that certain species of fly destroyed only dead tissue and had a positive effect on wound healing.

Dr. Joseph Jones, a ranking Confederate medical officer during the American Civil War, is quoted as follows, "I have frequently seen neglected wounds ... filled with maggots ... as far as my experience extends, these worms only destroy dead tissues, and do not injure specifically the well parts." The first therapeutic use of maggots is credited to a second Confederate medical officer Dr. J.F. Zacharias, who reported during the American Civil War that, "Maggots ... in a single day would clean a wound much better than any agents we had at our command ... I am sure I saved many lives by their use. " He recorded a high survival rate in patients he treated with maggots.