Gold
History Price
World Silver
Price
Silver History Price
World
Platinum Price
Platinum History Price
Featured Item
USES OF SILVER
Medicine
Article # : silver114
Medicine
Silver ions and silver compounds show a toxic effect on some bacteria, viruses, algae and fungi, typical for heavy metals like lead or mercury, but without the high toxicity to humans that are normally associated with these other metals. Its germicidal effects kill many microbial organisms in vitro, but testing and standardization of silver products is difficult.[9]
Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, wrote that silver had beneficial healing and anti-disease properties[cite this quote], and the Phoenicians used to store water, wine, and vinegar in silver bottles to prevent spoiling. In the early 1900s people would put silver dollars in milk bottles to prolong the milk's freshness.[10] Its germicidal effects increase its value in utensils and as jewellery. The exact process of silver's germicidal effect is still not well understood, although theories exist. One of these is the oligodynamic effect, which explains the effect on microorganisms but would not explain antiviral effects.
Silver compounds were used to prevent infection in World War I before the advent of antibiotics. Silver nitrate solution was a standard of care but was largely replaced by silver sulfadiazine cream (SSD Cream),[11] which was generally the "standard of care" for the antibacterial and antibiotic treatment of serious burns until the late 1990s.[12] Now, other options, such as silver-coated dressings (activated silver dressings), are used in addition to SSD cream. However, the evidence for the effectiveness of such silver-treated dressings is mixed and although the evidence is promising it is marred by the poor quality of the trials used to assess these products.[13] Consequently a major systematic review by the Cochrane Collaboration found insufficient evidence to recommend the use of silver-treated dressings to treat infected wounds.[13]
The widespread use of silver went out of fashion with the development of modern antibiotics. However, recently there has been renewed interest in silver as a broad-spectrum antimicrobial. In particular, silver is being used with alginate, a naturally occurring biopolymer derived from seaweed, in a range of products designed to prevent infections as part of wound management procedures, particularly applicable to burn victims. In 2007, AGC Flat Glass Europe introduced the first antibacterial glass to fight hospital-caught infection: it is covered with a thin layer of silver. In addition, Samsung has introduced washing machines with a final rinse containing silver ions to provide several days of antibacterial protection in the clothes. Kohler has introduced a line of toilet seats that have silver ions embedded to kill germs. A company called Thomson Research Associates has begun treating products with Ultra Fresh, an anti-microbial technology involving "proprietary nano-technology to produce the ultra-fine silver particles essential to ease of application and long-term protection." The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently approved an endotracheal breathing tube with a fine coat of silver for use in mechanical ventilation, after studies found it reduced the risk of ventilator-associated pneumonia.
It has long been known that antibacterial action of silver is enhanced by the presence of an electric field. Applying a few volts of electricity across silver electrodes drastically enhances the rate that bacteria in solution are killed. It was found recently that the antibacterial action of silver electrodes is greatly improved if the electrodes are covered with silver nanorods.
Source: Wikipedia