Since the revival of maggot therapy in Western wound care approximately thirty years ago, there has been no comprehensive synthesis of what is known about its clinical practice, supply chain management, and social dimensions. This edited volume fills the information vacuum and, importantly, makes the current state of knowledge freely accessible. It is the first to provide sound, evidence-based information and guidance covering the entire supply chain from production to treatment. The chapters are arranged in five parts presenting the latest on clinical practice, the principles of therapeutic action, medicinal maggot production, distribution logistics, and the ethical dimensions of maggot therapy. The contributors have paid particular attention to the challenges encountered in compromised, low-resource healthcare settings such as disasters, conflict, and poverty. There are still many barriers to the widespread uptake of maggot therapy in healthcare settings. This book will be essential reading for a global audience of doctors, nurses, allied healthcare providers, students, and entrepreneurs with an interest in maggot-assisted wound care. It will be the go-to reference for those who plan, regulate, and coordinate healthcare, and want to establish a maggot therapy program, particularly in low- and middle-income and other compromised healthcare settings where maggot therapy can provide much-needed, affordable, and efficacious wound care.

Biotherapy is defined as the use of living organisms in the treatment and diagnosis of human and animal diseases. This volume is an evocative exploration of the history, scientific basis and practical use of the major biotherapy modalities. The authors provide researchers and practitioners interested in this field, with cutting-edge material on the latest key advances in the following fields of biotherapy: Maggot Therapy, Hirudotherapy, Bee Venom Therapy, Apitherapy, Ichthyotherapy, Helminth Therapy, Phage Therapy, Animal Assisted Therapy, Canine Olfactory Detection. In addition, the authors provide with their chapters an extensive bibliography that represents a state-of-the-art survey of the literature. Comprehensive and current, this fresh volume of reviews is an essential resource for professionals who need to stay ahead of the game in the exciting field of biotherapy.

Impressive Results for Slow-healing WoundsAn Ancient Treatment - RediscoveredFly larvae have been used for centuries to successfully treat wounds. However, once penicillin was discovered, and antibiotic therapy became common worldwide, maggot therapy was forgotten. But now that bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to modern antibiotics, maggot therapy is experiencing a resurgence.Maggots Promote HealingFly larvae can debride and help heal chronic wounds in a form of biosurgery. As strange as it sounds, maggot therapy is often a patient's last chance to prevent amputation of a limb. The results of maggot therapy have been impressive in treating diabetic foot ulcers, slow-healing wounds resulting from circulatory problems, and pressure sores in bed-bound patients: over a majority of these wounds - many of them in existence for years - heal without pain or side effects.Everything You Need to Know About Maggot TherapyThis text contains extensive, reader-friendly information on maggot therapy. There is an overview of the pertinent fly species, a history of maggot therapy, and information on maggots' mode of action and application. In addition to detailed descriptions of the clinical problems for which maggots can be used, there are case studies and questions and answers from medical practice.Wilhelm Fleischmann, M.D., is a university lecturer and head physician at the Department of Trauma and Reconstructive Surgery at the Bietigheim Hospital, Germany. He is one of the leading German experts in maggot therapy.Martin Grassberger, M.D., Ph.D., is a physician and biologist at the University of Vienna, Austria. He also works as an independent researcher and consultant in the field of medical entomology and is a specialist on maggot debridement therapy and forensic entomology.Dr. Ronald Sherman, MD, MSc, is a physician at the Medical Center of the University of California at Los Angeles. He is the undisputed pioneer of modern maggot debridement therapy.

"Since the revival of maggot therapy in Western wound care approximately thirty years ago, there has been no comprehensive synthesis of what is known about its clinical practice, supply chain management, and social dimensions. This edited volume fills the information vacuum and, importantly, makes the current state of knowledge freely accessible. It is the first to provide sound, evidence-based information and guidance covering the entire supply chain from production to treatment. The chapters are arranged in five parts presenting the latest on clinical practice, the principles of therapeutic action, medicinal maggot production, distribution logistics, and the ethical dimensions of maggot therapy. The contributors have paid particular attention to the challenges encountered in compromised, low-resource healthcare settings such as disasters, conflict, and poverty. There are still many barriers to the widespread uptake of maggot therapy in healthcare settings. This book will be essential reading for a global audience of doctors, nurses, allied healthcare providers, students, and entrepreneurs with an interest in maggot-assisted wound care. It will be the go-to reference for those who plan, regulate, and coordinate healthcare, and want to establish a maggot therapy program, particularly in low- and middle-income and other compromised healthcare settings where maggot therapy can provide much-needed, affordable, and efficacious wound care."--Publisher's website.

This book covers remedies from ancient Egypt to the rain forests of contemporary Latin America, and challenges the myth that modern clinical practice is the only effective form of medicine. The authors find that modern research often reveals a rational basis for supposedly outdated ideas. Most important, an increasing number of physicians, pharmaceutical researchers, and scientists are beginning to recognize the wealth of knowledge that can be retrieved from abandoned practices of earlier eras in Western medicine and from outside the boundaries of Western ideas entirely.