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Medical Miracle or Major Gross Out?
What would you say if a doctor wanted to put tiny, wormlike, flesh-eating bugs on your feet? EWWWW! No way! But to some patients in England suffering from skin infections, maggots are the best medicine!
Infections are diseases that may be caused by bacteria. Bacteria are microscopic germs. Infections occur in wounds and can rot your flesh if not treated. Usually medicine called antibiotics will cure the infection, but not always.
Recently, some doctors experimented with putting maggots on the infections. Maggots look like little worms but are actually baby flies! They squirm around in the infection and eat all of the rotted flesh. They don't eat any healthy stuff, so they don't cause any harm. Once all the rotted flesh is eaten, the wound can begin to heal.
Patients treated with maggots were cured nine times faster than normal! The doctors will do more tests, but they are very excited. They say that maggots can be used to cure certain infections faster, cheaper, and with no risks to people.
Maggots are not the only creatures used to treat humans. Some doctors use blood-sucking leeches to help treat blood circulation problems. There are also people who believe that bee stings can help patients who have arthritis!
I guess this is all great news, but maggots are still GROOOOSSS! Yuck!
I'm Adelbert and that's what happened in science this week!
Let's play the Match game and identify some medicinal bugs!
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