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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Pus is not produced for a specific purpose – it’s mostly dead immune cells and bacteria and tissue. It’s created as a byproduct of the body fighting off an infection, because you want to kill the invading bacteria, and once you do, they don’t just disappear like a video game. Also some immune cells deal with invaders by engulfing them and then committing suicide, killing the invader in the process. Pretty metal.
In small enough infections, the pus will eventually be broken down and reabsorbed by your body. In large infections, it can’t be broken down quickly and needs to be drained.
As for why our bodies don’t deal with pus very well? In an evolutionary sense, it isn’t very important to recover from severe infections well. Back before medicine became a thing, there was a pretty narrow window between “this is a minor amount of pus that doesn’t require dedicated biological systems” and “this amount of pus doesn’t require dedicated biological systems because whatever caused it killed you.” Since our inability to deal with pus was never a major factor in our survival, it never was selected for and now poor doctors have to deal with draining abscesses. Tip: cover your nose and also consider having your sense of smell removed.
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