The Wonder of Pus Trivia Quiz

Answer: Dead white cells

Pus is primarily composed of dead white blood cells and bacteria, with tissue debris and serum. If from the lungs or eyes, it can also contain mucus and may contain blood in more serious cases.

Answer: Bacterial or fungal infection

Pus is the result of the white cells of the immune system attacking an enemy infection and is the waste product of the mass death and release of both. Small boils will clear on their own and often not burst, while larger ones often require drainage by minor surgery whether internal or external.

Injury may well result in the creation of pus if infection follows, but not directly.

Answer: A carbuncle has more than one head

A boil is anything conical with a head from a small pimple to something needing immediate medical attention. Worse still, when they extend to spread and create multiple heads they become carbuncles and can be far more dangerous. It is the same type of surface formation as a simple volcano compared to a complex caldera.

Answer: Antibiotics and drainage

Depending on its progress, a boil may need lancing or a drain tube to free the pus, or an initial application of magnesium sulphate to attack the infection from outside, with oral antibiotics if it does not improve. Surgery is a last resort for internal abscesses. A warm wet towel can also be applied to small pimples to reduce the swelling.

Answer: Mucus and blood

Because infection and, often, some type of physical damage cause the creation of pus, such as an infected wound, more serious damage will contain blood. Mucus is present most often when the infection is of the respiratory system, and an infection escalates from the lungs producing phlegm to the presence of pus. If phlegm turns from green to yellow it contains pus and may require treatment with antibiotics.

It can also be present where any mucous membrane is infected, such as conjunctivitis of the eye.

Answer: Abscess

A boil is a type of abscess, external, relatively small and with a single head. Any collection of pus is an abscess and can form in any part of the body. The internal types are the most dangerous as it can take time to find them and they need immediate treatment.

Answer: Removal of splinters

Although pus is a sign of an unwanted infection, when a splinter remains in the skin for too long it can get infected from any dirt on it, often from wood. When the body secretes pus it opens the hole and softens the tissue to allow the splinter to come out naturally. Before the thirteenth century there was a view that pus was a natural part of healing.

Answer: Maggots

As maggots naturally eat faeces and rotting tissue, but not healthy tissue, they can clean wounds better than any surgical method. Maggots are now bred for any injuries, surgery or ulcers which refuse to heal and begin to die (necrotise), and will drop off when all the bad tissue is eaten. It sounds unpleasant but maggots are nature's cleaners.

Answer: No

Until around the thirteenth century pus was assumed to be a normal part of the healing process, as described by Hippocrates in Ancient Greece. Only when it turned a nasty colour or smelled would it be treated. Then Theodoric Borgognoni, an Italian surgeon, called for the use of measures to prevent the formation of pus in healing wounds in 1267 AD.

Other doctors followed, such as the French surgeon Henri de Mondeville in his 1312 work Cyurgia (Surgery). The old term was 'laudable pus' to distinguish it from the dangerous type until surgeons realised it was always something to deal with as a health problem.

Answer: Staphylococcus aureus

Although pus is usually caused by a number of bacteria at once, S. aureus is the major cause and component of it. It is often present on surfaces and can enter through any break in the skin, causing typical pimples and boils. The MRSA bacteria, methycillin resistant staphylococcus aureus, eats flesh as it is so hard to wipe out with antibiotics. It necrotises wounds progressively, usually in immune compromised patients who are recovering from illnesses in hospital. Treatments based more on natural substances are beginning to show promise but there is currently no universally effective treatment for it. Clostridium is less common but far more deadly.

Herpes zoster is chicken pox which creates pimples filled with a clear fluid which then turns white and is usually reabsorbed into the body rather than bursting.