In Praise of Maggots

Note: Please do not read this just before or after a good meal. Maggots are the larval stage of a certain fly. They, like the adult stage, feed on formerly living material. When I was 16, I left my San Diego home on a quest. I didn't know what I was looking for exactly or why I was going; I only knew I had to leave and go. My going had none of the romance and adventure of many of my generation-fleeing to odd corners of the world to experience life and find oneself. I made a very safe journey from an Adventist hospital environment to an Adventist boarding school just south of Forest Grove here in Oregon. I'm not quite sure, either, why I chose Laurel wood academy (since defunct, though I don't think my attending had anything to do with that.) In this school, everyone had to work four hours per weekday no matter whether you were rich or poor. I was poor so there was no question. Because I came as a junior, all the good, clean jobs were taken. The only job available was working on the farm. We had a working dairy, wheat fields, vegetable gardens, orchards (you've never lived until you've eaten an apple sugared with dew just as the sun peaks over a fir-crested hill.). My first task, in the heat of late August 1961 was to clean out the feed lot around where the cows ate. To put this in perspective, I was a city boy. My mother grew up on a farm, but her farm stories were cleaned and deodorized; not a scent of chicken or cow or horse manure in a single one of her stories. We held our noses on the road to a park which led by a pig sty. In short, I was a city slicker; the object of derision among the kids who grew up on farms. Being the oldest and having a driver's license, I was expected to drive the tractor which pulled the honey wagon (for "honey" read "manure"). It worked great when I drove forward. When in reverse, my complete incompetence glared like a searchlight on a moonless night. Humiliation was my daily fodder; Jeers and jests my greeting every morning. These experienced fourteen-year-olds knew far more than the protected city slicker in other areas as well: They knew how to swear, to smoke and the facts of life. I felt a complete idiot in those things that these "youngsters" knew so much about. Oh, and one more thing-they knew how to cuss. But among all the things that this outsider had the most trouble adjusting to, the very worst, the one that nearly broke me, that which caused the most torment and misery was not smell or task or incompetence or ignorance but flies. I hated these things that fed on offal and then landed on me and infected me (so I felt) with all the bacteria of a cow's bowel. Coming from a medical home and environment where cleanliness leaning toward antisepticism, I could barely face my day. It seemed like I breathed them, ate them and dreamed them. The Egyptians had nothing on me; I would've cried out for a Moses if I'd have thought of it. I still don't like them. But a new respect has dawned. First a brief biology lesson: A female fly lays her fertilized eggs which hatch into a larval stage (maggots) which eat pretty much what the parent flies do-garbage and dead things. From the larval stage they develop into mature flies and then repeat the cycle. Flies are bad enough, but a maggot lives in, on and upon dead and decaying material. It gores itself on dead flesh, feces and anything else that has stopped living. It is associated with death itself. We abhor the wriggling, slimy white things. A wound infected with maggots turns the stomach and threatens to lose its contents and provide more maggot food. Food infested with maggots in inedible; the very thought destroys the appetite of any but the near-starving. So, a couple of years ago, I was horrified when I learned that hospitals and medical personnel were using maggots to treat bed sores. I am familiar with bed sores. Having worked in a nursing home and in medical social work, it was a part of everyday life. These sores begin when a person lies too long in one position, causing the tissue to be deprived of blood for a long enough period of time for the tissue to die. The medical term, if I remember correctly, is decubitus. It is very difficult to treat, especially in older people. Now these practitioners are purposely placing maggots in a decubitus. I was astounded. Then the truth struck. Maggots eat only dead flesh. Living flesh has no appeal. A surgeon who tried to debride a decubitus would inevitably further damage the living healthy tissue which was attempting to repair the wound. Water treatments are expensive and time consuming. Sterile maggots do not infect the wound; they clean out the dead tissue and make way for the living tissue beneath to thrive. That which I abhorred is the means for health and life and healing. I don't exactly know what the morality lesson is here. Perhaps it is only a question: What are the maggots in my life; what are those things which debride my spirit, my soul? What are those things which seem to me to be ugly and repulsive but which lead to the life and health of soul and spirit? I wonder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggot 6 12 09 Note: Please do not read this just before or after a good meal. Maggots are the larval stage of a certain fly. They, like the adult stage, feed on formerly living material. When I was 16, I left my San Diego home on a quest. I didn't know what I was looking for exactly or why I was going; I only knew I had to leave and go. My going had none of the romance and adventure of many of my generation-fleeing to odd corners of the world to experience life and find oneself. I made a very safe journey from an Adventist hospital environment to an Adventist boarding school just south of Forest Grove here in Oregon. I'm not quite sure, either, why I chose Laurel wood academy (since defunct, though I don't think my attending had anything to do with that.) In this school, everyone had to work four hours per weekday no matter whether you were rich or poor. I was poor so there was no question. Because I came as a junior, all the good, clean jobs were taken. The only job available was working on the farm. We had a working dairy, wheat fields, vegetable gardens, orchards (you've never lived until you've eaten an apple sugared with dew just as the sun peaks over a fir-crested hill.). My first task, in the heat of late August 1961 was to clean out the feed lot around where the cows ate. To put this in perspective, I was a city boy. My mother grew up on a farm, but her farm stories were cleaned and deodorized; not a scent of chicken or cow or horse manure in a single one of her stories. We held our noses on the road to a park which led by a pig sty. In short, I was a city slicker; the object of derision among the kids who grew up on farms. Being the oldest and having a driver's license, I was expected to drive the tractor which pulled the honey wagon (for "honey" read "manure"). It worked great when I drove forward. When in reverse, my complete incompetence glared like a searchlight on a moonless night. Humiliation was my daily fodder; Jeers and jests my greeting every morning. These experienced fourteen-year-olds knew far more than the protected city slicker in other areas as well: They knew how to swear, to smoke and the facts of life. I felt a complete idiot in those things that these "youngsters" knew so much about. Oh, and one more thing-they knew how to cuss. But among all the things that this outsider had the most trouble adjusting to, the very worst, the one that nearly broke me, that which caused the most torment and misery was not smell or task or incompetence or ignorance but flies. I hated these things that fed on offal and then landed on me and infected me (so I felt) with all the bacteria of a cow's bowel. Coming from a medical home and environment where cleanliness leaning toward antisepticism, I could barely face my day. It seemed like I breathed them, ate them and dreamed them. The Egyptians had nothing on me; I would've cried out for a Moses if I'd have thought of it. I still don't like them. But a new respect has dawned. First a brief biology lesson: A female fly lays her fertilized eggs which hatch into a larval stage (maggots) which eat pretty much what the parent flies do-garbage and dead things. From the larval stage they develop into mature flies and then repeat the cycle. Flies are bad enough, but a maggot lives in, on and upon dead and decaying material. It gores itself on dead flesh, feces and anything else that has stopped living. It is associated with death itself. We abhor the wriggling, slimy white things. A wound infected with maggots turns the stomach and threatens to lose its contents and provide more maggot food. Food infested with maggots in inedible; the very thought destroys the appetite of any but the near-starving. So, a couple of years ago, I was horrified when I learned that hospitals and medical personnel were using maggots to treat bed sores. I am familiar with bed sores. Having worked in a nursing home and in medical social work, it was a part of everyday life. These sores begin when a person lies too long in one position, causing the tissue to be deprived of blood for a long enough period of time for the tissue to die. The medical term, if I remember correctly, is decubitus. It is very difficult to treat, especially in older people. Now these practitioners are purposely placing maggots in a decubitus. I was astounded. Then the truth struck. Maggots eat only dead flesh. Living flesh has no appeal. A surgeon who tried to debride a decubitus would inevitably further damage the living healthy tissue which was attempting to repair the wound. Water treatments are expensive and time consuming. Sterile maggots do not infect the wound; they clean out the dead tissue and make way for the living tissue beneath to thrive. That which I abhorred is the means for health and life and healing. I don't exactly know what the morality lesson is here. Perhaps it is only a question: What are the maggots in my life; what are those things which debride my spirit, my soul? What are those things which seem to me to be ugly and repulsive but which lead to the life and health of soul and spirit? I wonder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggot 6 12 09