Grubby Surgeons

Once nuisances relegated to our trashcans, maggots are now being welcomed into leading US hospitals. Because evolutionary pressures have honed housefly larvae into lean, mean dead-flesh-eating machines, they are ideal candidates for removing necrotic tissue from poorly healing wounds. Initially popular in the 1930s and 40s, maggot therapy declined with advent of antibiotics. However, with the rise in multi-drug resistant bacteria, maggot therapy is making a comeback.

A mesh bag filled with hungry sterilized maggots is placed on a wound. The wriggling, rice-sized larvae liquefy the devitalized tissue using secreted proteolytic enzymes and then swallow it. Unlike surgical debridement, underlying new tissue is not harmed. The amount of bleeding is significantly less too. The process also releases an ammonia byproduct that disinfects the wound. It is both safe and economical. However, as one patient put it, "You have to get over the psychological and aesthetic considerations."' Plus, munching maggots have a tendency to tickle!

~Medagogue

Breast Accessories

Surprisingly, the presence of extra nipples and breasts is not uncommon. Anne Boleyn was rumored to have a third breast (making her popular, temporarily, with King Henry VIII). The ability of humans to grow more than two breasts has its genesis in our primordial past. Much like a nursing sow, our distant primate relatives had nipples running from their armpits to their groins.

Today, supernumerary breasts can germinate along these same “milk lines” when awash with sex hormones. It is not odd for a pregnant woman to grow a breast in her armpit, often resulting in discomfort post-childbearing, as it lactates in unison with its two sanctioned colleagues. One poor woman grew an extra breast on her the bottom of her foot, ouch!. Men are not immune to this phenomenon. The congenital extra nipple is quite common. There are also cases of men sporting milk-secreting breasts. In 1980, there was a 74-year-old man documented as having a fully formed breast on the back of his thigh, which he mistook for a fatty tumor.

~ Medagogue