Historic Silver, Interesting Facts

Scientific American states:

Like werewolves and vampires, bacteria have a weakness: silver. 

Silver — in the form of dissolved ions — attacks bacterial cells...

Ancient cultures believed silver would keep them healthy.

• To prevent spoilage, the Roman Empire stored wine in silver urns.
• Hippocrates taught the use of silver to support healing.
• Early American settlers tossed silver coins into wells and barrels of water believing it would make it safe to drink.
• Dairy farmers used silver pails to collect milk; apparently it kept milk from spoiling for hours, without refrigeration.
• Silver was used in dishware, drinking vessels and eating utensils, as it was known that disease-causing pathogens could not survive in the presence of silver; even the Chinese emperors and their courts ate with silver chopsticks.

In more modern times:

• During WWI troops used silver leaf to combat infection in wounds.
• In fact, colloidal silver was commonly used until 1938.
• Some of the 1950's generation still remember their grandparents putting silver dollars in milk to prolong its freshness at room temperature.
• Science Digest, March 1978 issue, published an article, "Our Mightiest Germ Fighter," reporting: "Thanks to eye-opening research, silver is emerging as a wonder of modern medicine. An antibiotic kills perhaps a half-dozen different disease organisms, but silver kills some 650. Resistant strains fail to develop. Moreover, silver is virtually non-toxic." The article ended with a quote by Dr. Harry Margraf, a biochemist and pioneering silver researcher who worked with the late Carl Moyer, M.D., chairman of Washington University's Department of Surgery in the 1970s: "Silver is the best all-around germ fighter we have."
• Even now, NASA uses silver in the water purification systems of the International Space Station.