What Is A Scab?

The human body is such a clever thing! When we cut ourselves or have an open wound, special cells in our blood stream called platelets come into action and start patching things up for us. These cells act as a kind of like a natural plaster and call in other blood cell to help them patch us up. These patches are the scabs that form on a wound.
The platelets work very quickly and begin to join together within 20 seconds after the injury has taken place. They act as a plug to stop the flow of blood from the injury. If the injury is particularly bad, the platelets call in reinforcements in the form of plasma components called coagulation factors. Coagulation factors create fibrin strands which strengthen the platelet plugs. Unfortunately, we humans tend to be a species of pickers! The body goes to all the trouble of healing our wounds so that they don't become infected and we thank it by picking the scabs off! If you are one of these people, spare a thought for the platelet cells. To avoid your wound becoming infected with a nasty disease, it will now have to work twice as hard to create a new scab!