How Silver Nitrate Was Discovered
The use of silver to retard bacterial growth dates clear back to the Greeks and Romans who stored their perishables in silver vessels.
It was not until 1881 that French surgeon Dr. Carl Credé used silver nitrate to reduce neonatal eye infections. He was one of the first surgeons to use silver nitrate to prevent wound infections.
Another surgeon, Dr. William Halsted, who was the Chief Surgeon at Johns Hopkins, pioneered the use of silver foil to prevent wound-related infections.
By the late 1800s the recognition that silver was lethal to bacteria in relatively low concentrations was common medical knowledge. Between 1900 and 1940 silver was the primary antibiotic used in medical practice. Numerous studies on the antibiotic properties of silver were conducted from 1920 – 1940. Physicians mixed silver preparations in their offices and they were either taken orally or injected. The shelf life was poor, as they had no way to keep the silver particles in suspension for longer than fifteen minutes. The unwieldy use of silver antibiotics gave way to the far easier to use sulfa drugs and eventually penicillin
In the early 1990s researchers figured out how to attach small particles of silver to protein, thereby allowing the formation of a true colloidal silver with an indefinite shelf life.
Just How Effective Is Colloidal Silver and Which Brand Is Best?
A study conducted at the San Francisco Tesla Institute found on testing 5 different brands against the deadly MRSA bacterial that ACS 200 extra strength had a killing rate of 99.999955%. To put this percentage into perspective of the 29,700,000 bacterial exposed to this product only 3 survived. The next runner up product was 99.82% effective leaving over 10,000 living MRSA organisms. The other three products were pretty dismal in that they killed only 58.3%, 47.1% and 39.7% of the MRSA.
I recommend taking colloidal silver only if you are sick. Taking it continuously like any antibiotic will disrupt your natural flora.
Terry Pfau DO, HMD