Maggots better than surgeons at wound cleaning -- for a week anyway Maggots are increasingly used to clean wounds that are not healing or healing only very slowly. The maggots eat away the dead (necrotic) tissue while ignoring healthy tissue that is forming during the healing process. The alternative, which has been used for centuries, is to physically scrape out the dead tissue, which can be painful for the patient and may not remove all of the dead tissue. Some researchers also think the... read more