The History of Colloidal Silver

The Perfect Solution for Harmful Bacteria, Virus & Fungi

Silver has been used since antiquity to purify water.  While silver's importance as a bactericide has only been documented since the late 1800s, its use in purification has been known throughout the ages. The Phoenicians for example, used silver vessels to keep water, wine and vinegar pure during long voyages. American pioneers put silver and copper coins in their water barrels to keep them clean.  

"Born with a silver spoon in his mouth" is not a reference to wealth, but to health.  In the early 18th century, babies fed with silver spoons were found to be healthier than those fed with spoons made from other metals. The British aristocracy ate from silver plates and drank from silver goblets, ingested and injected quantities of silver; allegedly this led to them being referred to as 'blue bloods', due to their skin colour.  Certainly, it is known that prolonged ingestion of certain forms of silver can lead to Argyria, characterised by a harmless but unsightly grey skin discolouration. Argyria is extremely rare and associated with ingestion of large quantities of soluble silver compounds, salts or silver nitrate. There are no known cases of Argyria being caused by modern Colloidal Silver products manufactured correctly. 

In the early 1900s, a number of reports can be found in British and American medical journals on the use of silver for a variety of diseases.   Australian Dr Keith Courteney has summarised many of these early results in his book Colloidal Silver (Oracle Press, Montville, Qld, 1999; available in UK from Nexus Publications: 01342 322854) which while in need of judicious editing, is a useful source of early applications.

Up until the War, silver was used as a mainstream anti-bactericide and anti-fungal both intravenously and intramuscularly, as a throat gargle, douche, orally, topically, and as eye drops.   (Z Baranowski Colloidal Silver The Natural Antibiotic Alternative, Healing Wisdom Publications, NY, 1995). Evidence suggests that it has been used against some 650 bacteria and fungi.

Crude technology made it expensive to produce and with the post-war rise in pharmaceuticals, it rapidly felt into disuse in the new era of antibiotics. In the US the FDA classifies it as a pre 1938 drug and still allows it to be used so long as such products are 'advertised and labelled for the same use as in 1938 and manufactured in the original manner.'

In the 1970's silver began something of a comeback.  Dr Cart Moyer at the University of Washington worked with biochemist Dr Harry Margraf to find a better treatment for burn victims.  Initially they used silver nitrate but finding that it was corrosive and painful, diluted it to a 0.5% solution and observed that it killed Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria and allowed wounds to heal (Surgical Forum 1966-17-76-8).  No resistant strains appeared.

The discovery led to the increasing use of silver ions in burn and wound healing. After outbreaks of Legionnaire's Disease in Britain during the 1980s silver was eventually found to be effective in treating it.  Experiments showed that even at lower water temperatures, ionisation of soft water with silver and copper ions was effective against the bacteria. Silver is now used in modern water purification systems. Many airlines use silver water filters and NASA used a silver system for the Space Shuttle.