Apothecarists now

Ancient remedies for wound care are enjoying a revival after their efficacy amazed doctors. Now researchers are poring over historical documents to unearth other medicines in the face of antibiotic resistance

- Amelia Tait

For several long months in the 1990s, Ronald Sherman travelled all over southern California catching flies. As a qualified doctor pursuing an infectious diseases fellowship, Sherman was curious about a potential new – and also very old – way to clean wounds. At medical school, he’d written a paper on the history of maggot therapy, tracing how the creepy crawlies helped heal soldiers in the Napoleonic wars, the American civil war and the first world war. Sherman wanted to test maggots in a modern setting. The problem? No one farmed and sold the species of flies that the doctor needed – so he went out and caught them himself.

Once the specimens were collected and “as soon as everyone stopped laughing”, Sherman got to work. After treating his first patients with maggots, he was impressed by the results, but nonetheless he struggled to get his initial research papers published. A rejection letter from one journal read: “Publishing the manuscript might be interpreted as an endorsement for a therapy that is ancient .” Yet today , Sherman says , “that same journal probably has two or three articles about maggot therapy every year!”

It is believed that ancient Aboriginal tribes used maggots to treat the wounded and some academics argue that the practice “dates back to the beginnings of civilisation”. Hundreds of years later, these superbugs are used to fight superbugs . In an age of growing antibiotic resistance, maggots are an alternative to modern medicine, as they help to fight infection by consuming dead tissue and bacteria. Between 2007 and 2019, the number of NHS patients treated with maggots increased by 47%.