Medicine: Maggot Vulnerary

The urine of unborn babies is an excellent vulnerary. Wounds and ulcers promptly heal under the bland influence of a remarkable chemical, allantoin, which such urine contains. Allantoin also occurs in beets and bruisewort, favorite folk remedies for cuts and ulcers.

While feeding maggots which surgeons use to cure infected wounds (TIME, Jan. 22, 1934), Dr. William Robinson, of the Government's Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, remembered fetal urine and bruisewort, decided to learn whether the maggot vulneraries also did their good work by excreting allantoin into the wound. Surgeons theretofore knew...

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