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MAGGOTS have been used to cure patients suffering from hospital superbug MRSA, scientists revealed today.
Green bottle larvae were applied to infected wounds to munch their way through the damaged tissue.
In trials the treatment was a success in 12 out of 13 patients, with the life-threatening condition disappearing within a month.
Researchers from the University of Manchester used maggots to treat diabetic patients who had contracted MRSA in foot ulcers.
But scientists say the treatment could be expanded to fight MRSA infections in wounds all over the body.
The tests found 12 of the 13 patients were cured by the fly larvae within three weeks rather than the 28 weeks needed for conventional treatment.
Professor Andrew Boulton, who led the study, said: "Maggots are the world's smallest surgeons.
"In fact they are better than surgeons - they are much cheaper and work 24 hours a day.
"They have been used since the Napoleonic Wars and in the American Civil War, they found that those who survived were the ones with maggots in their wounds: they kept them clean.
"They remove the dead tissue and bacteria, leaving the healthy tissue to heal.
"Still, we were very surprised to see such a good result for MRSA.
"There is no reason this cannot be applied to many other areas of the body, except perhaps a large abdominal wound."
The results were published in medical journal Diabetes Care and have won the research group a £98,000 grant from Diabetes UK to carry out a randomised controlled trial.
The team treated 13 patients aged between 18 and 80 who suffered from chronic foot ulcers.
They used sterile "free-range" larvae from the green bottle fly Lucilia Sericata which were applied between two and eight times for four days at a time.
The treatment failed to work in only one patient and there were no adverse side effects.
Professor Boulton added: "This is very exciting. We have demonstrated for the first time the potential of larval therapy to eliminate MRSA infection of diabetic foot ulcers.
"If confirmed in a randomised controlled trial, larval treatment would offer the first non-invasive and risk-free treatment of this increasing problem and a safe and cost-effective treatment in contrast to the expensive and potentially toxic antibiotic remedies."
Prof Boulton has used maggots to treat diabetic foot ulcers for 10 years but has only recently used them to cure MRSA infections.
Maggots used to cure MRSA
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