Why does the body produce pus when you get a skin infection or a zit? To me it just seems like a counter-productive reaction as it often has to be drained in order to heal well.
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Our main type of bacteria-fighting white blood cell, the neutrophil, can eat up to 200 bacteria in its short life. Bacteria are however very crafty and some of the dangerous ones like Staph (which lives on our skin and up our noses) have learned to become difficult to eat. The humble neutrophil has tricks of its own however and when it can’t eat the bacteria and digest it internally, it will throw out a net to capture and kill it, and if that is insufficient it will also just throw up all its digestive juices and kill the bacteria that way.
Pus is the accumulation of neutrophils that died after eating their fill, and bits of broken neutrophil nets and dead bacteria, and neutrophil vomit basically.
While uncomfortable, unsightly, and generally ick, pus also builds up pressure until POP – it drains away, hopefully outside our bodies to the surface of the skin, allowing the pocket where the bacteria were trying to colonize and invade to heal.
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