So I've come across numerous accounts of doctors (with severely limited resources at their disposal) using maggots in infected wounds. Specifically to try delay or prevent gangrene setting in before a soldier could reach a proper hospital or medical center.
Firstly, was this true? And if so, did it actually work?
Secondly, where did this seemingly experimental medicine practice originate? It sounds like some kind of medieval shenanigans rather than something invented for WWII.
Thanks in advance!
Bottom line answer is that yes it has been done, and yes, it works. In fact, the potential use of maggots for wound cleansing was noted and commented on centuries ago. Some authors refer to myaiasis (maggots in the wounds) as being mentioned in the old testament of the Bible, though I have not actually researched that. A questionable reference to its use is found in "The Hortus Sanitanus" of 1491. This was a collection of medical writings from the ancients. A famous Surgeon, Ambrose Paré (1500s-- felt by many to be the father of modern surgery), described the beneficial effects of maggots on war wounds, though he probably did not actually introduce them into the wounds by design. He thought they arose by spontaneous generation, but he did note that their presence seemed to reduce the incidence of gangrene. Napolean's surgeon Baron Larrey(1700s-mid 1800s) wrote about wounds which were infested with maggots, but he complained that it was hard to convince the patients to leave them in place. Similar findings were noted during the American Civil War-- some Confederate surgeons without medical equipment needed to treat the wounded deliberately used maggots, with good effects. During the 1920s, A US Surgeon, Baer, deliberately used maggots in civilian hospitals to treat osteomyelitis. The Lederle company began breeding sterile maggots in the 1930s. The development of antibiotics led to decreasing use of maggots in the 1930s and 1940s, but with the increase in antibiotic resistance since then, Surgeons have begun an increased use of maggots during and since the 1980s.
An excellent treatise on this subject was by Sylvia A. Stegeman & Pascal Steenvoorde from the Leiden University Medical Center, Albinusdreef 2, 2333 ZA Leiden, The Netherlands. The title is "Maggot Debridement Therapy", and was published as a conference proceeding (Conference: Proc. Neth. Entomol. Soc. Meet., Volume: 22), and is available online as a PDF file. It has lots of further references if you continue to be interested.
Maggot debridement therapy (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260701991_Maggot_debridement_therapy .