It has been reported that one
reason the upper class did not succumb to many of the plagues which 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 were so well known that legends of werewolves required
silver to kill the lychantrophy, and supposedly, evil witches cowered at the
power of silver to eliminate evil.
Even 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 good 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. They 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 to form 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. However, 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. However, 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. Pathogenic bacteria are anaerobic, and if oxidized will die.
Thus, to prevent oxidization, they carry an enzyme to specifically repel
negatively charged oxygen. If this enzyme is disabled so that they lose this
negatively 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 and the reaction is ultimately lethal to the pathogen.
It thus follows that negatively
charged bacteria, and negatively charged oxygen will both 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 now easily
combine with the other, and will do so, oxidizing the pathogen an destroying it.
Specifically it has been
determined that with anaerobic bacteria and viruses oxygen reacts with the
sulfhydryl (-S-H) groups surrounding the surface and 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)
Not only will it result in the
catalytic oxidation of the bacteria or other pathogens, but 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
interactions much faster and at much larger distances than would be expected by
pure chance of collision.
However "aerobic bacteria, those
that breath oxygen, do not carry a negative charge. This enables the good
bacteria to attract oxygen which they require to breathe. One would expect that
aerobic bacteria would not be killed by silver.
However testing done at
University of Tennessee under our directions 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 lack of killing the good bacteria 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 mammal 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. 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 it's
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 down side 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 silver water.
Other therapies which work along
similar lines such as ozonated water are reported to cause 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.
However, 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 silver water 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 it solubility in cold water to 89
PPM (6), this is still a significant amount of silver compound comapared with
the amount in the colloid itself (5 to 10 PPM).
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).
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 on the particle sizes in a colloid by use of a scanning
photospectrometer. Ionic silver has an absorption band in the uv, 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.
