Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures

by Merlin Sheldrake

The indigenous peoples of Australia treated wounds with moulds harvested from the shaded side of eucalyptus trees. The Jewish Talmud features a mould cure known as ‘chamka’, consisting of mouldy corn soaked in date wine. Ancient Egyptian papyruses from 1500 BCE refer to the curative properties of mould, and in 1640 the King’s herbalist in London, John Parkinson, described the use of moulds to treat wounds.

The literature on traditional mould cures is fascinating. A researcher in England, Milton Wainwright, became interested in the subject and amassed a database of people’s accounts. One person described their grandfather’s method of scraping the green mould from hams hanging from the rafters. Another described the practice — apparently common in European farmhouses — of keeping a mouldy loaf of bread on the beams in the kitchen which could be made into a poultice for wounds. I went to visit Milton and spent hours listening to his stories. Another of his interests is maggot therapy. This is a traditional technique, practiced for hundreds of years, in which live maggots are let loose within wounds. The maggots eat the dead tissue (known as ‘debriding’) and their saliva disinfects the wound. After a while you remove the maggots. It turns out that there is nothing more effective. Maggot therapy has had a recent resurgence and is now a standard hospital technique in many places and packets of sterile maggots can be ordered from medical supply companies. I asked if it was painful. Milton laughed and explained that it could feel a little strange — the maggots are fond of grazing on nerve endings.