What all our bodily openings have in common is mucus.
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by Jonathan Reisman. Copyright © 2021 by Jonathan Reisman. Reprinted with permission from Flatiron Books. All rights reserved. Mucus holds a special place among bodily fluids. This fact became apparent to me quickly in medical school. Healthcare workers, who deal with bodily fluids of every sort, seemed to have a particular distaste for mucus above all the others. I’ve heard countless doctors declare their disgust for sputum’s chunky, gelatinous, sticky texture. Many nurses have told me they would prefer cleaning up a patient’s bloody stool, even, to disposing of mucous secretions any day.
Our bodies require these perforations to serve as entrances and exits, as transition zones between the body’s dry outside and its forever moist innards. But at the same time, they’re constantly in danger: besides enticing people to put objects into them, which often leads to an ER visit when they cannot get them back out again, the primary threat is microbial invasion.
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