Maggot Therapy - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• In a scene set in 1809, the wound of Lt. Sharpe (Sean Bean) is left clean by applied maggots in the 1993 TV programme Sharpe's Eagle. Rather than being merely discussed, the maggots are shown on the skin around the wound.
• In an episode of Chicago Hope a patient undergoes maggot therapy. The maggots are not shown though.
• In the 2000 film Gladiator, Russell Crowe's character has a shoulder wound cleaned with maggots.
• In the young adult novel The Dolphins of Laurentum, taking place in Roman Italy, maggots were used on an injury as an alternative to amputation. In the story the therapy was successful and the man was able to walk again.
• In addition, the television show House, M.D. included treatment of a burn by maggot therapy in the twelfth episode of the second season, titled "Distractions," on February 14, 2006.
• Claire Fraser, a medical practitioner and principal character in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series of novels, often uses maggots for debridement of necrotic tissue in her patients' wounds.
• The titular character of Johnny Got His Gun claims that maggot therapy could have prevented his quadruple amputations.
• In her 2009 novel The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood focuses on a group called God's Gardeners, a small community of survivors of the same environmental catastrophe who are using maggot therapy for many acute wounds.

• In the American Dad season 9 episode "Killer Vacation", Steve mentions maggot therapy when his friend suggests using bees to clean his open wound.