Silver has been reported to have therapeutic value
throughout the ages. It has been reported that one reason the upper class did not succumb
to many of the plagues that almost wiped out many villages was because they ate with
silver utensils, off silver plates and drank from silver goblets. Churches did, and still
do, use cups made of silver for communion, where one goblet is passed from person to
person. Earlier this century people put silver dollars in their milk and wells to ward off
spoilage and illness (4). The knowledge of the miraculous healing powers of silver was so
well known that in the legends of werewolves, silver was required to kill the
lychantrophy, and supposedly, evil witches cowered at the power of silver to eliminate
evil.
More recently, many researchers such as Bob Beck have reported that
silver in a colloidal state eliminates virtually all known pathogens, viruses, fungi,
bacteria, protozoa, and yeasts. Yet, it appears that there is no effect on the
"good" bacteria in the intestinal tract, either because it does not attack such
bacteria, or it is absorbed into the blood stream before reaching the intestinal tract.
Silver is referred to as a transition metal in chemical literature,
along with copper and gold. These are metals that are heavier than the life-giving light
metals, such as sodium, calcium, and potassium, yet lighter than the toxic heavy metals
such as lead, arsenic and mercury. Gold and silver are considered noble metals because
they tend to not react easily in forming compounds.
The transition metals are known for their catalytic properties.
Although ionic silver (such as any silver compound dissolved in water), has very little if
any catalytic effect, and macroscopic silver has little effect either, very
finely powdered silver becomes a very good oxidizing catalyst. Starting with atomic or
ionic silver, the catalytic effect increases with particle size until it reaches a peak at
some value, then drops off to a much lower level when the particles approach the
wavelength of light.
This is easy to explain by examining how a catalyst works. Each
positively charged silver atom will attract one negatively charged atom or molecule. Once
they touch, the charge is neutralized. If you have more than one positively charged atom
of silver in a particle, then each can attract a negatively charged atom or particle. If a
clump of silver atoms binds with two negatively charged particles, such as oxygen and
something else, these two particles will no longer electrostatically repel each other, but
will be brought together and will react, oxidizing the particle.
The larger the particle, the more positively charged silver atoms can
attract oxygen and other negatively charged particles to the surface. If particle size
becomes too large, then the amount of silver hidden in the center of the particle means
that the increase in mass, which goes up with the cube of the diameter, is increasing
faster than the active surface areas, which goes up at the square of the diameter. The
catalytic effect thus peaks at some particle size and decreases with respect to the amount
of silver if the size is increased further.
Bacteria come in two forms - anaerobic and aerobic. Earlier this
century, it was discovered by Dr. Gram that he could stain bacteria with a specially
prepared Gram stain, and that in general good bacteria stained, but pathogenic bacteria
did not stain. It was later discovered that the pathogenic bacteria are negatively
charged. Most pathogenic bacteria are anaerobic, and if oxidized will die. In order to prevent
oxidization, they carry an enzyme to repel negatively charged oxygen. If this enzyme is
disabled so that they lose this negative charge, or if oxygen is supplied in a form such
that it is reactive to negatively charged pathogens, such as ozone water or hydrogen
peroxide, the bacteria will be oxidized. This reaction is lethal to the pathogen.
It would follow that that negatively charged bacteria, and negatively
charged oxygen will be attracted to and will bind with silver particles. Since the
negative charge is neutralized through an electron transfer with the particle of silver,
each can easily combine with the other, and will do so, oxidizing the pathogen and
destroying it.
It has been determined specifically that oxygen reacts with anaerobic
bacteria and viruses with the sulfhydryl (-S-H) groups surrounding the surface. It removes
the hydrogen (converting it to water) so that the sulfur atoms form an -R-S-S-R bond. This
interferes with the organism’s transport or membrane proteins and deactivates
them.(5)
This will not only result in the catalytic oxidation of the bacteria or
other pathogens (since almost all pathogens are negatively charged and the silver is
positively charged), the silver and pathogen are attracted to each other via a static
attraction causing much faster interactions and at much larger distances than would be
expected by pure chance of collision.
However "good" bacteria, those that breathe oxygen, do not
carry a negative charge. This enables the good bacteria to attract oxygen which these
bacteria require to breathe. One would expect that aerobic bacteria would not be killed by
silver. However, testing done at University of Tennessee under our direction has shown
that colloidal silver is also quite effective in killing aerobic bacteria. The method by
which the aerobic bacteria are killed is still under investigation.
It has been previously thought that the reason that colloidal silver
does not affect the good bacteria in the intestines was because it did not kill
"good" bacteria. We have proven this to be false. Further investigation
indicates that colloidal silver is unable to move around and interact with bacteria when
in a gel or solid matrix. This in conjunction with the fact that most if not all of the
silver, when particle size is correct, will get absorbed through the stomach lining and
into the blood stream, most likely accounts for the high rates of survival of the good
flora of in the intestines.
It should be clear now why silver colloids are extremely effective at
destroying pathogenic bacteria, yet do not affect good bacteria in the intestines or
mammalian cells. Yet, the reports on the effectiveness of silver colloids, when compared
with normal antibiotics, still seem to call into question why silver is so much more
effective, often effecting a cure in hours, when powerful antibiotics may take days or
weeks.
There are a number of reasons why silver seems to have much
more effectiveness than normal antibiotics. Here are a number of them:
1. Colloidal silver is positively charged; most antibiotics do not
carry a strong positive charge. This causes silver to virtually seek out and destroy
pathogens, instead of simply having to move around until they happen to bump into each
other. This effect is quite appropriately referred to as the "Silver Bullet"-
effect by Dr. Robert Beck.
2 Silver kills immediately by oxidizing the pathogen. Antibiotics do
not affect viruses at all, and for bacteria will only kill the bacteria when it tries to
divide (penicillin type antibiotics) or will prevent the pathogen from dividing
(tetracycline type antibiotics). In the first case, it may take the bacteria several days
before it attempts to divide; and in the second case the bacteria is not killed at all,
but just prevented from replicating. In both cases, the immune system must take care of
most or all of the pathogens. With silver, they are killed outright immediately.
3. Silver is a catalyst. Thus, as soon as a particle of silver has
oxidized a pathogen, the pathogen loses its’ negative charge and floats away, and the
silver is free to attack another pathogen. Antibiotics usually bind with the pathogen and
for each pathogen destroyed, one particle or molecule of the antibiotic is used up.
The result is that silver will usually give a much faster kill than an
antibiotic. The downside of this is that the high and rapid kill rate can result in
Herxheimer's reaction or healing crisis (1). The body simply does not have time to
eliminate the huge amount of toxins and dead pathogens that can result from colloidal silver.
Other therapies which work along similar lines, such as ozonated water, are reported to
have the same problem. It is highly recommended to never initially give therapeutic
dosages of colloidal silver to a severely ill person, but to give small amounts initially
and work up to therapeutic dosages in a couple of days. This allows the kill rate to be
maintained where the body can eliminate the dead pathogens and toxins without undue
stress. Of course, drinking large amounts of liquids can help flush the toxins and should
be encouraged.
Other Possible negative effects
As most people know, silver is used as the photo-sensitive ingredient
in almost all photographic processes. Silver compounds, when exposed to light, will often
result in the silver being reduced to atomic or metallic silver. Then in the presence of a
developer, any silver compounds that contact the silver particles will also undergo a
reduction reaction, enlarging the silver particle.
While this process is essential to photography, it is undesirable in
the skin of a person. It is thought by many that the reason that the royalty long ago were
called blue bloods is because the silver from the goblets and wares would react with acids
in their drinks and foods, then precipitate out in their skin giving them a bluish color.
It is known that consumption of silver compounds, such as silver nitrate, followed by
exposure to sunlight can result in a graying or bluing of the skin, a medical condition
called argyria (2). As it turns out, a number of chemicals that can appear in the blood
make quite effective developers. Caffeine and tannin are just two of them (3).
Fortunately, colloidal silver, when made by the electrolytic process in
pure distilled water without any salts being added, produces no silver compounds. Thus,
silver plating out of colloidal silver is not possible; the silver particles are already
reduced to pure silver, and are mutually repulsed, because of their positive charges.
If the colloidal silver is made from silver salts by reduction
chemistry, (as the high ppm level products are) traces of silver salts can remain.
Although silver metal is non-toxic to mammals, silver salts are poisonous because of the
associated cations, and can result in argyria (2). Also, when colloidal silver is made by
the electrolytic process and salt or sea salt is added, silver salts will be produced as
well. Although, in an emergency, one would be wise to make one's own colloidal silver using
techniques previously given by Dr. Beck, for long -term use all exposure to silver salts
should be avoided.
The use of table salt (sodium chloride) will produce some silver
chloride. This is undesirable, and although the amount of silver chloride is limited by
its solubility in cold water to 89 PPM (6), this upper limit is still a significant amount of silver
compound compared with the amount in the colloid itself (5 to 10 PPM).
The amount of silver chloride produced will normally be limited by how much salt is
added and thus will be lower than the 89 PPM limit, but although slight, is still undesireable..
The use of sea salt, which many people recommend, is especially
disturbing. Sea salt contains many compounds, including various nitrates and fluoride.
Many of the compounds can combine with silver to produce silver compounds. Specifically
silver can combine with nitrates forming a highly soluble and toxic silver nitrate salt
and with fluoride producing highly soluble and toxic silver fluoride. Nitrates in sea salt
can run as high as 20 ppm, and fluorides are typically 40 ppm (7). Once
again the amount of silver salts that can be generated is limitd by the
amount of salt added. Therefore colloidal
silver should be only made with pure distilled water to prevent the formation of any toxic
silver compounds. If one must use an accelerating agent, then adding a small amount of
previously produced colloidal silver is recommended, over adding any type of salt.
Effectiveness verses particle size
Several publications indicate that for absorption through the stomach
wall, particles must be .015 micron (15 nm) or smaller.
Traditionally, particle size has been determined by electron
microscopy. This technique is quite slow and tedious, resulting in a procedure which is
both slow and inaccurate.
The absorption band of silver colloids increases in wavelength as the
size of the particles increase. This allows a qualitative measurement of the particle
sizes in a colloid by use of a scanning photospectrometer. Ionic silver has an absorption
band in the UV range and thus is virtually clear. As more atoms aggregate into a particle,
the absorption band moves from the UV into the violet, blue, green, yellow, orange and
red. Since, the color of a substance is the complement of the color absorbed colloidal
silver will go from clear to very light yellow, gold, orange, red, blue and green.
(Colloidal Chemistry page 65). Colloids that contain a broad range of sizes can absorb wavelengths across the
spectrum resulting in brown and black. It is generally accepted that only clear to light
gold silver colloids have particle sizes small enough to be effective, and to be able to
reach the blood stream.
References:
1. FUNGUS The species specific understanding of, and difference between
bacterial phase and fungal phase developments in blood pictures. Michael Coyle. Explore!
1997.
2. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics 76th Edition 1995-1996 CRC
Press. David R. Lide Editor in Chief. P 4-27.
3. A Use for that last Cup of Coffee: Film and Paper Development. Dr.
Scott Williams. http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/text-coffee.html
4. Health Consciousness Magazine Vol 15, No 4.
5. The Development and Functions of Silver in Water Purification and
Disease Control. The Silver Institute. Richard Davis & Samual Etris.
6. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics 52th Edition 1971-1972 page
B-135
7 ibid. F-165
