A New ‘Golden Age’ for Silver

Use of silver for medical purposes goes back as far as history itself: The Ancient Greek, Herodotus, often called the Father of History, wrote of its use among the Persians, and his contemporary, Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, was attuned to silver’s unique healing and disease-fighting properties. The Phoenicians, those earliest of oceanic explorers, prolonged the shelf lives of their water, wine, and vinegar by storing the drinks in silver vessels.

Nor was knowledge of silver’s preservative qualities lost with the Ancients: Following in the Phoenicians’ wake, later sailors the world over added silver coins to their barrels of water and wine, preserving them throughout their long voyages, and at the start of the 20th Century, silver coins were still regularly placed in jugs of milk. Furthermore, the prominence of silver cutlery and jewellery is not only a measure of the metal’s beauty: It is also a reflection of its bacteriophagic brilliance.

Homely superstitions of the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period can likewise be traced to an implicit knowledge of silver’s antibacterial properties: Silver spoons and other implements were used to ward postnatal women and newborn infants from the malign attentions of sickness-inducing witches and fairies.

During the First World War, prior to the discovery of antibiotics, silver nitrate was commonly used to treat infections. Silver sulphadiazine later became the favoured antimicrobial silver remedy and was still the standard treatment for serious burns right up to the close of the 20th Century.

The development of antibiotics and their revolution of medical treatment made many of silver’s common uses redundant, but recent years have witnessed renewed interest in silver as a broad-spectrum antimicrobial agent. For example, silver-bearing organic polymers are used in burn treatment, and silver-coated glass is utilised in hospital equipment. Silver-bearing solutions and other products are a current trend in alternative medicine, and silver is gaining in popularity as a dietary supplement with preventative powers against a wide range of ailments.

You are probably using silver all the time without even knowing it: For example, the metal is used in the production of everyday items like polyester, film prints, and processed foods. Even completely-unprocessed foods contain silver since particles of this element occur naturally in water and in the earth. Silver’s conduciveness is not only metaphorical either: Its wide use in household appliances is a testament to its electrical conductivity!

As they say, grandmother knows best, and traditional remedies are often the best ones, especially when considered in terms of effectiveness and environmental friendliness. What grandmother may not know is that technology today allows us to bring silver’s unparalleled broad-spectrum antibacterial applicability to a whole new level.