MARK MY WORD: SCIENTISTS FOMENT MAGGOT MEDICINE

Goodbye, high-tech gadgets and costly drugs. Say hello to maggot medicine.

This isn't everybody's cup of tea. But there are maggot-minded people like David Rogers, an Oxford University entomologist who is considered a pioneer in this fly-invested business.

In his lab, Rogers displays the fruit of his labors: a chunk of liver covered with thousands of slimy, squirming maggots.

That's enough maggots to help heal the wounds of 10 patients, figuring 10 maggots per square centimeter of open sores.

It's enough to make any self-respecting, disease-infested pirate jump with joy.

The whole notion is that maggots devour dead tissue and bacteria that might be rioting in your wound, but it would avoid your healthy skin.

With infections becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, the maggots may do a better job, proponents say.

"It's got global appeal. It's ludicrously cost-effective and low-tech," says Dr. John Church, an orthopedic surgeon who must have a fly swatter for a friend.

Church, Rogers and fellow bug guy Paul Embden want to launch maggot therapy in England.

It is already being used by Dr. Ronald Sherman to treat patients at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Long Beach, Calif.

One patient already has been treated successfully. The rest turned into giant flies. But then progress takes time.

Maggots thrive off dead meat and bacteria and can get into the nooks and crannies that antibiotics can't reach, according to Church.

Most patients require at least three batches of maggots.

The Oxford team has a fertile family of flies capable of producing hundreds of thousands of offspring every few weeks.

Still, I doubt many hospital nurses would look forward to changing bug-ridden bandages. And the bandages must be changed before the maggots reach adulthood and fly away.

Instead of stethoscopes, doctors will be making their rounds with fly swatters.

I doubt many patients would sit still while a bunch of slimy bugs crawled all over them. Besides, who would want to visit them in the hospital except maybe your friendly bug spray guy.

Still, in this age of bottom-line medicine, you never know. Maggots might catch on.

"Take two maggots and call me in the morning" could become standard operating procedure.

Fly-infested regions of the country would attract big medical centers.

Insurance companies would get in the act too. They certainly would have guidelines on what types of maggot procedures they would pay for.

The insurance company might pay for a 1,000-maggot treatment for your basic, festering wound. Any more maggots than that and the patient could be on his own.

Instead of buying costly drugs, you would buy a low-cost bottle of maggots from your friendly pharmacist, who would probably throw in a fly swatter too.

Maggots could be depicted on hospital logos and in wellness campaigns.

Civic clubs would hold fund-raising events to buy maggots for the needy.

"You maggot" would become a friendly greeting.

On second thought, forget this maggot-infested idea. Pass me the bug spray.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.