IT makes your skin crawl just thinking about it -- having maggots wriggling about on your skin.

But the tiny larvae have a better use than just dangling as bait on the end of a fisherman's line, as patients in South Ribble are finding out.

Maggots are being used by specialist nurses to treat serious wounds and infections.

And at an exhibition yesterday (Wednesday), the treatment was being demonstrated by health bosses, armed with test tubes full of wriggling live maggots.

Shirley Aspin, tissue viability specialist nurse for Chorley and South Ribble Primary Care Trust, is the area's expert in the amazing treatment.

She explained: "You need to have a sloughing wound -- a wound full of dead tissue. The maggots only eat the dead and they're not interested in the healthy skin."

It is thought maggots were first used as medical treatment as far back as 1829 by Napoleon's surgeon-in-chief. But as antibiotics became more popular, the traditional treatment faded away.

The maggots are bred from greenbottle flies in a special laboratory in Wales, then sold to health bosses for £50, for a test tube of about 300 creatures.

Mrs Aspin, based at Withnell Health Centre, said: "People haven't always got wounds that are suitable for maggots. But if you have got a bad wound you're glad of something that can help.

"After we've used them, we can wash them off, then they go for incinerating with the rest of the clinical waste.

"Maggots have been used for a long while, but since the 1980's they have started to become a bit more popular. I was aware it was something that could help patients, so I worked at getting the project started up."

Chorley and South Ribble Primary Care Trust began using the treatment for home visits in November.