Tuesday, July 30, 2013

How the Infection-Fighting Power of Silver Was Re-Discovered

The history of the medical and therapeutic use of silver is a fascinating one, going back many centuries. 

Here’s a brief overview taking you from 425 B.C. to the present day, and demonstrating conclusively through historical documentation that colloidal silver is indeed the world’s most effective natural infection-fighting agent…      

Hi, Steve Barwick here, for www.TheSilverEdge.com...

The phenomenal healing and infection-fighting qualities of silver have been known quite literally since before the time of Christ. 

Indeed, according to the records of Herodotus, written in 425 B.C., ancient Persian kings such as Cyrus the Great insisted their water was carried in silver vessels when going off to war, in order to prevent it from becoming contaminated. 

Of course, since this was long before the realization that microbes are the cause of infection or contamination, the silver was being used empirically.   It was simply observed that water did not become impure and make you sick when you drink it, if it was stored in silver vessels.

In his study published in the journal Surgical Infections, J. Wesley Alexander writes:

“The ancient Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and others also were recorded to have used silver in one form or another to preserve food and water from spoiling. 

The application of silver plates to achieve better wound healing was used by the Macedonians, perhaps the first attempt to prevent or treat surgical infections.

Hippocrates used silver preparations for the treatment of ulcers and to promote
wound healing”

And in 78 A.D. Pliny the Elder wrote, “"[Slag of silver] has healing properties as an ingredient in plasters, being extremely effective in causing wounds to close up."

What’s more, it’s said that early American pioneers always placed a silver dollar into buckets of milk in order to help keep the milk for spoiling quickly. (You can see a short video demonstrating a modern-day version of this phenomena, here.) 

And for centuries, long before the advent of refrigeration, the people of India have pounded silver into thin, delicate sheets called varakh, which are about one hundredth of the thickness of a sheet of paper.

These sheets of silver are used to wrap candies and foods in order to prevent them from spoiling in the country’s hot outdoor food bazaars.

Traditionally, the food is eaten foil and all, because of its ability to prevent stomach infections that can be caused by eating the unrefrigerated foods.

The Advent of Colloidal Silver

After Edison showed the world how to harness and utilize electricity in 1879, scientists quickly discovered that they could suspend silver rods in pure water, and sinter tiny silver particles off of them by running electricity through them.  

This became known as electrically-generated colloidal silver.  Chemical processes were also invented for making a variety of colloidal silver solutions. 

And by the late 1930's – well before the advent of prescription antibiotic drugs -- colloidal silver in its various forms had become one of the most popular infection-fighting substances among doctors, being sold under the names of Collargol, Protargol, Electrargol, Lunasol and many others.  

As Robert Bartholow wrote of silver’s infection-fighting qualities in A Practical Treatise on Materia Medica and Therapeutics, way back in 1908:

“As a topical agent, silver may be used in surgical diseases, wounds, injuries, and in cases of septic decomposition.

Wherever diseases— either pure or mixed infectious—are caused by the staphylococcus, the streptococcus, and other forms of low organisms, this remedy is effective in a high degree.

And as Dr. William Halstead, M.D., one of the founding fathers of modern surgery, stated of silver in 1913:

"We may only have scratched the surface of silver’s medical brilliance! Already it is an amazing tool!

It stimulates bone - forming cells, cures the most stubborn infections of all kinds...and stimulates healing in skin and other soft tissues.

I know of nothing which could quite take its place, nor, have I known anyone to abandon it who had thoroughly familiarized himself with the technique of its application. "

As the British Medical Journal stated in February 1917:

“Colloidal silver has been used successfully in septic conditions of the mouth including pyorrhea alveolysis, throat, ear, and in generalized septicemia, leucorrhea, cystitis, whooping cough and shingles."

As Alfred E. Searle, author of Colloids in Biology and Medicine wrote in 1919:

"Applying colloidal silver to human subjects has been done in a large number of cases with astonishingly successful results...it has the advantage of being rapidly fatal to microbes without toxic action on its host. It is quite stable. It protects rabbits from ten times the lethal dose of tetanus or diphtheria toxin.” 

As Dr. Henry Crooks, M.D. stated in 1921:

"I know of no microbe that is not killed by silver in laboratory experiments in six minutes."

And finally, according to The National Druggist, Vol. 50, page 388, in August 1920:

"Colloidal silver is powerfully destructive of toxins of bacterial origin…Experiments on rabbits show that colloidal silver renders subject 'immune' from the effects of large quantities of tetanic or diphtheritic serum.

…colloidal silver has proved its value in combating the following ailments among others -- tonsilitis, gonorrhoeal conjunctivitis, spring catarrh, pustular eczema of scalp, septic ulcers of legs, boils, chronic cystiitis, ringwork, soft sores.

But we must not prolong the list of the good works of colloidal silver. Suffice it that at the present time it is the most extensively used in medicine of all the sols."

The Rise and Fall of Antibiotic Drugs

But after the advent of prescription antibiotic drugs in the late 1930’s, colloidal silver usage gradually fell out of favor with doctors. And antibiotic drugs were widely embraced in its stead.  

However, by the 1970's -- less than 40 years after the advent of prescription antibiotic drugs – the antibiotics were already losing their luster, due to the ability of pathogens to mutate and adapt to them.  

In other words, it was already being documented by medical science that antibiotic drugs began to lose their effectiveness against pathogens relatively rapidly, as the pathogens mutated in response to their presence.

This lead researchers and cutting edge doctors to begin looking for alternatives to prescription antibiotics.  

Some doctors began researching the older medical literature, asking themselves, "How did we treat infections prior to the advent of prescription antibiotic drugs?"  

And as a result, interest in silver slowly began making a comeback. 

Dr. Robert O. Becker, M.D.

By the mid-1970s, a surgeon named Dr. Robert O. Becker, M.D. began his groundbreaking research at Syracuse Medical University, which would lead to the widespread re-discovery of silver as an effective antimicrobial substance.

He had been attempting to demonstrate his theory that small micro-currents of electricity could be used to make stubborn bone fractures heal, if electrodes could be temporarily surgically implanted into the fractures.

During the course of his experiments, he began using silver electrodes in order to take advantage of silver’s well-known propensity to conduct electricity. But what he discovered in the process took him completely by surprise.

You see, not only did the micro-currents of electricity trigger the bone fractures to heal just as he had expected, but the tiny, electrically generated silver particles that were driven into the bone and surrounding tissue from the silver electrodes healed ALL nearby infections as well.

Even rare and potentially deadly bone infections such as osteomyelitis were rapidly healed! Dr. Becker later concluded in his best-selling book The Body Electric:

 “What we have done was rediscover the fact that silver kills bacteria, a fact which had actually been known for centuries ...

…All of the organisms we tested were sensitive to the electrically generated silver ion, including some that were resistant to all known antibiotics...In no case were any undesirable side effects of the silver treatment apparent.”

Yes, indeed. Dr. Becker had re-discovered a fact that medical researchers of old had once known, but that had become lost to medicine ever since the age of prescription antibiotic drugs had been ushered in by the global pharmaceutical conglomerates during the 1940’s.

He had re-discovered the fact that silver – one of the world’s oldest and most powerful natural antibiotic substances – could kill just about any pathogen exposed to it. Even the most virulent of pathogens succumb to it with ease!

Since that time, colloidal silver has once again become the world's most popular and effective natural antibiotic substance.  

As Harvard educated Dr. Jonathan Wright, M.D., of the famous Tahoma Clinic in Washington State has written:

"Silver attacks all three of the germ's vulnerable targets at once.

First, the silver ions easily rupture a germ's outer membrane when present in the right amounts, causing the germ's vital internal components to be exposed in the bloodstream to our white blood cells.

While the white blood cells attack the internal components, the micro-particulate silver continues to destroy these vital internal components by cutting up vital enzymes.

The silver ions then easily attack the germ's third vulnerable target: its delicate gene pool.

Silver ions have the ability to reach into the nucleus of the germ, where its gene pool is located. Once they combine with the genes, the genes become paralyzed, and the germ cannot replicate itself.”

As Dr. Herbert Slavin, M.D., founder and director of the Institute for Advanced Medicine in Lauderhill, Florida has stated:

"...Colloidal silver is emerging as the new antimicrobial wonder in dealing with bacterial as well as, yes, viral conditions too, both in medicine and in industry...

Colloidal silver was actually a commonly-used antimicrobial 100 years ago, before the advent of modern antibiotics, which only address bacteria and are becoming largely obsolete while posing risks related to resistant super-germs.

Colloidal silver is increasingly being recognized for its broad-spectrum antimicrobial qualities and the fact that it presents virtually none of the side-effects related to antibiotics.”

As Dr. Joseph Weissman, M.D., board certified Immunologist and Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California Medical School has stated:

"Today, many antibiotics are losing the battle with germs.

Fortunately, the best germ killer, which was discovered over 2,000 years ago, is finally getting the proper attention from medical science - natural silver.

I sincerely recommend that everyone have electrically generated colloidal silver in their home as an antiseptic, antibacterial and antifungal agent."

And as biochemist James South, MA has written:
“...Electrically-generated colloidal silver [Ag(e)] has been shown to kill dozens of bacteria, including Providencia stuartii, a germ already resistant in the 1970's to all antibiotics except amikacin, as well as two strains of antibiotic-resistant Enterobacter cloacae that were isolated from burn patients...

… It has also proved adept at killing various yeast/fungus species at very low silver concentrations, including Candida albicans, C. parapsilosis, C. tropicalis, C. pseudotropicalis, Torulopsis glabrata and Aspergillus niger. 

Electrically-generated colloidal silver has also been shown to kill cysts of the common water-borne protozoal parasite Entamoeba histolytica.  It has also killed the protozoa Paramecium when exposed to 2.2 ppm silver, as well as the protozoa Varicella at 5.9 ppm. 

…The most amazing case of colloidal silver usage which I’ve had personal knowledge involved an 83 year old woman who was suffering severe septicemia (infectious blood poisoning).

Her doctors were unable to control the raging infection and had sent her home, expecting her death in 48-72 hours.

Her husband contacted an intermediary, through whom I recommended trying colloidal silver. The woman was immediately put on one tablespoon of 5 ppm colloidal silver three times daily.

Within 24 hours her septicemia began to disappear, and within 48 hours her septicemic crisis was over, and she did not die as expected."

Where to Get Colloidal Silver

Electrically generated colloidal silver can be purchased today in nearly any well-stocked health food store. 

But costs can be a bit on the exorbitant side – as much as $20 to $30 for a tiny four-ounce bottle of this safe, natural, healing and infection-fighting substance. 

Thankfully, you don’t have to pay those exorbitant health food store prices.  Indeed, you can make your own high-quality electrically-generated colloidal silver, quickly and easily, with a simple device called a Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator from The Silver Edge.

The low-voltage Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator is based on the ground-breaking work of Dr. Robert O. Becker, M.D. 

And it allows you to make your own high-quality colloidal silver in the comfort and privacy of your own home, and for less than 36 cents a quart!
Learn more about making your own high-quality colloidal silver with a brand new Micro-Particle Colloidal Silver Generator from The Silver Edge, by clicking the link in this sentence. 

Yours for the safe, sane and responsible use of colloidal silver,


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Important Note and Disclaimer:  The contents of this Ezine have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.  Information conveyed herein is from sources deemed to be accurate and reliable, but no guarantee can be made in regards to the accuracy and reliability thereof.  The author, Steve Barwick, is a natural health journalist with over 30 years of experience writing professionally about natural health topics.  He is not a doctor.  Therefore, nothing stated in this Ezine should be construed as prescriptive in nature, nor is any part of this Ezine meant to be considered a substitute for professional medical advice.  Nothing reported herein is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.  The author is simply reporting in journalistic fashion what he has learned during the past 17 years of journalistic research into colloidal silver and its usage.  Therefore, the information and data presented should be considered for informational purposes only, and approached with caution.  Readers should verify for themselves, and to their own satisfaction, from other knowledgeable sources such as their doctor, the accuracy and reliability of all reports, ideas, conclusions, comments and opinions stated herein.  All important health care decisions should be made under the guidance and direction of a legitimate, knowledgeable and experienced health care professional.  Readers are solely responsible for their choices.  The author and publisher disclaim responsibility and/or liability for any loss or hardship that may be incurred as a result of the use or application of any information included in this Ezine. 

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