PETROLATUM:THE VEGETABLE ALTERNATIVE

摘要

Before antibiotics conquered the world, the only possible method to cure gangrene was maggot therapy, except for amputation of the extremities. Maggots were applied to the wound and would eat the necrotic tissue, including the organisms that were responsible for that. Wound infection resulting in gangrene caused by soil organisms such as Clostridium perfringens (gas gangrene, one of the worst forms of gangrene because of its rapid proliferation) was at one time one of the most feared causes of death, probably claiming more casualties than the Black Death or Spanish flu.