All the references, even those to the expensive ($275) Lansdown are
about ionized or colloidal silver.
Norwex appears to be a home selling organization.
Tony Konrath
I'm sorry, but university research papers are very difficult to find.
That’s very true. When I was a research student, it was no problem,
but after leaving academia, I’ve had no luck when I’ve wanted to
look up research papers. They’re just not available to the general
public. If you’re lucky you may find just an abstract of a paper,
but very rarely the whole thing.
Helen
UK
Silver flat ware has caused more wounds than it has ever healed.
jeffD
Demand Designs
Analog/Digital Modelling & Goldsmithing
http://www.gmavt.net/~jdemand
All the references, even those to the expensive ($275) Lansdown are about ionized or colloidal silver. Norwex appears to be a home selling organization.
Tony, solid silver can become ionized by moisture coming in contact
with it. I will no longer try to convince you of this.
Jeff Herman
http://www.worldwidewounds.com/2006/may/Maillard/Focus-On-Silver.html
Ionic silver, silver salts.
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/full/71/11/7589
Ionic silver,
http://www.mddionline.com/article/role-antimicrobial-silver-nanotechnology
Ionic silver.
This is not splitting hairs. Silver particulate and silver salts
work very differently than the crystalized and amorphous forms.
Tony Konrath
Well, all this stuff about Silver is all good and well, but one must
really consider it’s historical effect on Lycanthropy, Eh?
Particularly in projectile form.
Dr. B, Ds.D
http://www.worldwidewounds.com/2006/may/Maillard/Focus-On-Silver.html
From the first paragraph of this paper you cite:
"Silver has been used for centuries. Originally, silver vessels
were used to preserve water, and its use for medicinal purposes
is documented from 750AD.
This is not splitting hairs. Silver particulate and silver salts work very differently than the crystalized and amorphous forms.
Well it is splitting hairs as the silver in metallic form is readily
ionized by food stuffs and drink etc. Sure you can greatly improve
its action as an antibacterial by providing large quantities of
silver ions or salts but there is plenty of medical research that
shows the anti bacterial qualities of silver metal. It is obviously
impractical to apply metallic silver as a wound dressing but a
solution or gel of containing silver ions or salts is easy to apply.
So if you want to cherry pick the articles that only deal with ionic
forms that is fine but you might read the ones I cited on the
antibacterial qualities of silver metal medical devices.
And BTW where do you find amorphous silver metal?
James Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts
Years ago silver nitrate was routinely applied to the eyes of
newborn babies to prevent infection, I believe from one of the STDs
prevalent at the time. It was discontinued because it sometimes
caused blindness.
Jerry in Kodiak
The healthy ingestion of food substances from silver is the basis of
the folk saying “Born with a silver spoon in their mouth” meaning not
only that the child was from wealthy parents but had a better than
average chance at good health.
The problem lies when this is taken to an extreme. A friend of mine
is a nurse and has seen a patient who was consuming silver for it’s
anti-bacterial properties. The man’s skin tone had taken on a grayish
blue tint as a result and he was poisoning himself in the process.
On a positive side small fired clay water filters with trace amounts
of silver in them are being used to purify water supplies in African
countries, saving children from water born illness like dysentery.
Nanz Aalund
Rapidly cool molten silver, the semi-crystaline material is
amorphous. OK sometimes it’s called microsrytalline!
The research on medical uses shows that silver implants retard and
prevent bacterial growth - not that it kills bacteria.
Tony Konrath
Sorry Nanz,
The usage of the term “Born with a silver spoon” had nothing to do
with the perceived health giving properties. I can find no reference
to it other than on pseudo-scientific web sites desperately trying
to sell “magical” products.
The clay water filters (made by Potters for Peace
http://s189535770.onlinehome.us/pottersforpeace/?page_id=9) for are
in fact highly technical bits of equipment that have been simplified
for cost and ease of production…
“…the filter is coated with colloidal silver. The combination of
fine pore size, resulting from milled, screened materials, and the
bactericidal properties of colloidal silver produce an effective
filter.”
They are 50% effective at reducing diarrhea and depend mainly on
physical filters to eliminate water born particles, amoeba and worms
which cause the dysentry.
Note, colloidal silver? This is not just silver plate. Even then the
filters are mainly effective because they reduce the contamination
by a screening
When we post things as facts here we should make sure they are facts
and not just advertising copy.
Tony Konrath
Hi Guys,
For those on the list that don’t know.
The term “Born with a silver spoon in your mouth”, means you have
rich parents, and these days it is a derisive term.
Regards Charles A.
Tony,
Rapidly cool molten silver, the semi-crystaline material is amorphous. OK sometimes it's called microsrytalline!
amorphous means absolutely no crystal structure. Random arrangement
of atoms. Glass is a prime example. Microcrystalline means the grain
size is extremely small. But there are still, at some level, atoms
arranged according to crystalline patterns, even if the grains are so
small as to contain only a small number of atoms in each crystal.
This nevertheless is not amorphous. Some amorphous materials (again,
glass is a prime example) are actually more accuratly called super
cooled highly viscous liquids, than they are called fully solid
materials. Without crystal structure, atoms are freer to move around
over time, and the materials will actually flow, given enough time
and the right conditions. For crystaline structures to do that,
crystal distortion has to take place, or some level of
annealing/recrystalization.
This may be splitting hairs, as the properties of very rapidly or
supercooled materials from the molten state or an annealing temp,
etc, with their extremely small grain size, are often quite
different from those of normally cooled materials. But it’s still, by
definition, not an amorphous material.
Peter Rowe
Silver nitrate is still used to stop bleeding. It was used on me
just last week on a biopsy. It worked; the bleeding was stopped.
Vicki K, SoCal
Silver implants also have another effect within the body in that
they help Nitrous oxide into solution. This causes the dilation of
blood vessels and promotes oxtgenation of the body’s cells. This
oxidation helps kill bacteria nd viruses (and even cancer cells). The
optimum amount of silver is extremely small and the insertion of a
silver plate into the body as per old bone restructuring doesnt do
it. The silver “colloid” filters arent strictly colloids but commonly
a fine mesh. Apart from filtering out hermful particles they can act
as a catalyst. The technology goes back to 1820 but they didnt know
what they had then or how it worked as microbiology as a science
didnt exist but it was proven to work empirically. As in so many
other fields people reinvent things and even patent them without
realising they were beaten to it by our forbears who thought it so
obvious it wasnt even worth writing down (formula for investment
plaster for example-only shown scientifically how it works about 10
years ago) I think a lot of these “new age” inventions come about
because of lazy journalism and the rather overoptimistic time scales
given for discoveries to become common currency. Silver in artificial
bone has been the path to follow for ages but Bioglass was patented
by Larry Hench in the early 1960’s after he managed to find the right
formula at his first attempt. Again it was an empirical approch after
he saw woulds healing themselves in troops he operated on who had
sand embedded in them in the first sea borne invasion of Vietnam by
the US. As yet, there are no large scale permanent bone
replcements/implants because there are still many things that are not
known about cell growth and until these questions are answered no-one
will risk the possible consequences evn though the known benefits are
huge. So, so far we have repaired teeth and false legs for a rabbit
and a cat but no replacement jawbones for oral cancer patients.
Nick Royall
A digression I know
As in so many other fields people reinvent things and even patent them without realising they were beaten to it by our forbears who thought it so obvious it wasnt even worth writing down
Very true!
I have fought silver battle with Tony couple of month ago. Even have
written an article on the subject. (It is available on my website) So
I decided to sit this one out. But subject of our forbears and their
wisdom has been my lifetime pursuit.
Take jewellery design. Where the idea of surrounding stone with
smaller stones came from? What is filigree ? We simply filling space
with small curves of wire and most of the arrangements look
reasonably attractive. How did the goldsmith, who attempted it first,
came up on that idea?
These and many similar questions bothered me for a long time. But
when I have read “Fractal Geometry of Nature”, I noticed remarkable
similarity between jewellery designs and Julia Sets. Could it be
possible that Goldsmithing Traditions carry encoded messages from the
Past. That is a fascinating subject to ponder.
I have to warn you. Do not try to read article about Julia Sets in
wikipedia. Whoever wrote it, does not understand the purpose of
wikipedia. A better source is
http://www.miqel.com/fractals_math_patterns/visual_math_fractal_types.html
Leonid Surpin
The usage of the term "Born with a silver spoon" had nothing to do with the perceived health giving properties
I reckon you are right. I feel slightly ashamed to admit this, but I
do have a silver christening spoon somewhere, given to me by an
elderly godparent. Apparently it was a common gift amongst the
wealthy before WWII, although it’s uncommon now.
But I wasn’t born with it in my mouth.
This one runs and runs! To sum of what we’ve figured so far, there
seems to be evidence that silver in various forms, including
metallic, can have some beneficial effects.
But, we haven’t covered jewellery alloys - they might be metal, but
that isn’t the same as pure metallic silver. Neither have we
discussed silver solder and tarnishing and oxidation of the silver
over time.
Most of us here aren’t metallurgists, and we certainly aren’t
bio-metallurgists (or whatever you call experts in metallurgy for
living systems) - it isn’t our responsibility to decide whether
silver is beneficial or not. Our only responsibility is to our
customers.
This conversation started with a nice idea for improving sales of
silverware. Personally, I don’t feel that there are any grounds for
recommending to customers that they should buy silver for its health
benefits - but I won’t argue with them if they want them for
antibacterial characteristics. What I would do is have a
conversation about the uncertainties behind it. In the UK, trading
standards would be very concerned if I were to make such a claim,
and I couldn’t sell silver as anything other than a luxury item. The
workshop isn’t clean enough, anyway. Who knows what traces chemicals
might remain in the surface of the silver.
The term “Born with a silver spoon in your mouth”, means you have
rich parents, and these days it is a derisive term. Charles, your
post made me grin as it brought back a forgotten memory. AGES ago,
Ann Richards was Govenor of Texas and George Bush (the younger) was
running against her to capture the office. You remember Ann
Richards… the perfectly coiffed silver hair, the huge smile, a face
absolutely filled with wrinkles from living life to the fullest, and
the slowest, deepest Texas drawl you’ve ever heard. (whether you
loved or hated her politics, you couldn’t help but admire the woman).
Anyway, during one of her campaign speeches covered by the news she
delivered the following line with charm and perfect comedic timing:
“Poor George… he can’t heeeelp it. He was born with a silver foot
in his mouth.”
Made me laugh then, and makes me laugh today. (Even G.W. is the first
to admit that public speaking isn’t his strength.)
Leonid,
Thank you for the wonderful reference to the Julia Sets. As I
mentioned to you at another time, in another life I was very active
in the TI99/4a World. There I became aware of Mandelbrot and
Fractals. I have never lost that fascination. The message from
ancient jewelers is oh so enticing.
To be delved into at another time.
Meanwhile, I support Jeffrey Herman’s in reviving the Silver
community, yes even with the Green aspect. From infancy I was fed
with Sterling Silver utensils, my first baby cup was Sterling
Silver, our table flatware was, yes, Sterling Silver. Every female
cousin received Sterling Silver flatware as well as decorative
pieces. Time to revive those traditions.
What is this argument really about? Seems as if some knickers were
washed in boiling water again.
Hugs,
Terrie