larvae doubled after the FDA ruling. Maggot therapy is now used in more than 300 sites across the country. The American Medical Association and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently clarified the reimbursement guidelines to the wound care community for medicinal maggots, and this therapy may soon be covered by insurance. The larvae of the green bottle fly (a type of blow-fly) are now used exclusively for this purpose, since they preferentially devour only necrotic tissue, leaving healthy tissue intact. This is an important distinction, as most other major varieties of myiasitic fly larvae attack both live and dead wound tissue indiscriminately, effectively negating their benefit in non-harmful wound debridement. Medicinal maggots are placed on the wound and covered with a sterile dressing of gauze and nylon mesh. However, too many larvae placed on the wound could result in healthy tissue being eaten, efficiently creating a new wound, rendering it as a type of myiasis. History Maggot therapy has a long history and prehistory. The indigenous people of Australia used maggot therapy, and so do the Hill Peoples of Northern Burma, and possibly the Mayans of Central America. Surgeons in Napoleon's armies recognized that wounded soldiers with myiasis were more likely to survive than those without the infestation. In the American Civil War, army surgeons treated wounds by allowing blowfly maggots to clean away the decayed tissue. William Baer, an orthopedic surgeon at Johns Hopkins during the late 1920s, used maggot therapy to treat a series of patients with osteomyelitis, an infection of bone or bone marrow. The idea was based on an experience in World War I in which two soldiers presented to him with broken femurs after having lain on the ground for seven days without food and water. Baer could not figure out why neither man had a fever or signs of sepsis. He observed: "On removing the clothing from the wounded part, much was my surprise to see the wound filled with thousands and thousands of maggots, apparently those of the blow fly. The sight was very disgusting and measures were taken hurriedly to wash out these abominable looking creatures." However, he then saw that the wounds were filled with "beautiful pink granulation tissue" and were healing well. Maggot therapy was common in the United States during the 1930s. However, during the second half of the twentieth century, after the introduction of antibiotics, maggot therapy