When I was a lad, I was playing monkey in the middle indoors in the local church basement. I fell and put a nice triangular 4 inch spike of hardwood into the meat of my palm. We pulled it out, bandaged it up and went on with life as folks did in those days.
4 or 5 days later it was swollen and red streaks were running up my arm so Mom decided that maybe a trip to the doc was in order. Doc took a look, set me on the table with my hand palm up on my thigh. He set his thumb on my arm just above the red streaks, lanced the scab with a scalpel, pressed hard and ran his thumb down to my palm.
My hand was suddenly filled with about a 1/4 cup of stinking brown puss and a short chunk of hardwood. Next thing I knew I woke up coughing from the ammonia inhalant.
Worst infection I ever had.