A Brief History of Old Medical
Quotes on Colloidal Silver
Many people have only recently
begun to learn about the astonishing healing and infection-fighting benefits of
colloidal silver.
But truth be told, colloidal
silver’s broad-spectrum antimicrobial qualities have been known since the late
1800s when the substance was first produced.
Here’s a quick overview of what
medical and clinical research experts were saying about colloidal silver over
100 years ago…
Colloidal silver use came into
being shortly after Edison harnessed electricity in 1879 and researchers
learned how to drive tiny silver micro-particles from pure silver rods
suspended in water, by running electricity through them.
Chemical techniques for
producing colloidal silver were also invented.
And soon, numerous forms of colloidal silver were being used by doctors
around the world, with names like Collargol, Protargol, Electrargol, Lunasol
and many others.
What made colloidal silver so
popular with doctors? In many cases, it
was the vast panoply of infectious disease conditions which colloidal silver
rapidly and quite effectively cured.
As Dr. Reynold Webb Wilcox,
M.D., stated in January 1900, in the New England Medical Monthly and
Prescription, in an article titled “Internal Antisepsis”:
“…colloidal silver has a very
beneficial influence and often effects a rapid cure in recent and chronic
sepsis and furunculosis, when secondary changes in the vital organs have not
occurred.
[Doctors] have treated
osteomyelitis, phlegmonous angina, furunculosis, erysipelas, so-called
gonorrheal and articular rheumatism, etc., by this method.
Various reports, some very
enthusiastic, have been presented; on puerperal fever (Peters, Jones,
Voorhees), cerebrospinal meningitis (Schirmer),acute mastitis (Cumston),
malignant scarlet fever (Crede), divers septic processes (Werler), furunculosis
(Wolfram), and finally in purpura in the horse (Dieckerhoff).
Wilcox's own experience in
septic phlebitis, of which an unusually large percentage has occurred in his
typhoid fever cases, has been most satisfactory… In one instance of septic
phlebitis following amoebic dysentery the results were almost marvelous.”
In layman’s terms, colloidal
silver cured infections of the bloodstream, infected boils, infected bone,
infection-induced fevers and just about everything you could throw at it if an
infectious condition was involved in the disease process.
And as Robert Bartholow wrote of
silver’s astonishing infection-fighting qualities in A Practical Treatise on
Materia Medica and Therapeutics, way back in 1908:
“As a topical agent, silver may be used in
surgical diseases, wounds, injuries, and in cases of septic decomposition.
Wherever
diseases -- either pure or mixed infectious -- are caused by the staphylococcus, the streptococcus, and
other forms of low organisms, this remedy is
effective in a high degree.”
And as
also reported in 1908, in the journal Post-Graduate (Vol. 23, #10, page 911),
from the New York Medical School and Hospital:
“The
properties of colloidal silver are, therapeutically, the following: antiseptic, inhibiting bacterial growth,
inorganic ferment exercising catalytic action.
The drug
is absolutely
harmless and should be used (1) when at
the outset the infection assumes a serious aspect; (2) when an infection, at
first localized, tends to become generalized."
In
other words, colloidal silver was used to stop infections from becoming more
serious, and to stop already-serious infections from spreading.
And as
Dr. William Halstead, M.D. (see image above), one of the founding fathers of
modern surgery, wrote of the infection-fighting qualities of silver way back in
1913:
"We
may only have scratched the surface of silver’s medical brilliance! Already it is an amazing tool!
It stimulates bone-forming cells, cures the
most stubborn infections of all kinds...and stimulates healing in skin and
other soft tissues.
I know of nothing which could quite take its
place, nor, have I known anyone to abandon it who had thoroughly familiarized
himself with the technique of its application. "
Unfortunately,
it took until 1975, some 60 years later, for medical science to finally accept
silver’s role in stimulating bone-forming cells, and curing stubborn tissue
infections around bone breaks, thanks largely to the remarkable clinical
research of Dr. Robert O. Becker, M.D. of Syracuse Medical University.
But
let’s get back to the older medical quotes.
As the British Medical Journal stated in February 1917:
“Colloidal silver has been used successfully in
septic conditions of the mouth including pyorrhea alveolysis, throat, ear, and
in generalized septicemia, leucorrhea, cystitis, whooping cough and
shingles."
It
seems there was hardly any kind of infection that colloidal silver didn’t work
for! As Alfred E. Searle, author of
Colloids in Biology and Medicine wrote in 1919:
"Applying
colloidal silver to human subjects has been done in a large number of cases
with astonishingly successful results...it
has the advantage of being rapidly fatal to microbes without toxic action on its host. It is quite stable. It protects
rabbits from ten times the lethal dose of tetanus or diphtheria toxin.”
As
researcher Fred Wilbur Tanner, stated in the journal Bacteriology and Mycology
of Foods, in 1919:
"Biasiotti
(1910) reported that colloidal silver electrically prepared would kill
Staphylococcus aureus, B. typhi, and Bacterium diphtheria; in a few hours. The
silver is probably united to the protoplasm in some way because Gram positive
bacteria are made Gram negative.”
As Dr.
Henry Crooks, M.D. stated in 1921:
"I
know of no microbe that is not killed by silver in laboratory experiments in
six minutes."
And
finally, according to the August, 1920 edition of The National Druggist, Vol.
50, page 388:
"Colloidal
silver is powerfully destructive of toxins of bacterial origin …Experiments on
rabbits show that colloidal silver renders subject 'immune' from the effects of
large quantities of tetanic or diphtheritic serum.
…colloidal silver has proved its value in
combating the following ailments among others -- tonsilitis, gonorrhoeal
conjunctivitis, spring catarrh, pustular eczema of scalp, septic ulcers of
legs, boils, chronic cystiitis, ringwork, soft sores.
But we
must not prolong the list of the good works of colloidal silver. Suffice it
that at the present time it is the most extensively used in medicine of all the
sols."
In
short, colloidal silver was the star infection-fighting agent of the early
1900’s, before the advent of prescription antibiotic drugs like sulfa and
penicillin in the 1930’s and 40’s.
Silver’s
Untimely Demise
and
Much-Needed Resurrection
Once
prescription drugs were developed and the modern pharmaceutical industry began
forming, colloidal silver usage by medical doctors gradually fell out of favor.
But
over the ensuing decades, as more and more bacteria began developing resistance
to prescription antibiotic drugs, cutting edge doctors began looking back to
the past to find out what was used before antibiotic drugs were developed. And what they found was, of course, colloidal
silver.
As
newer research was conducted in the 1970’s on silver as an infection-fighting
agent, the interest in colloidal silver
as a safe and powerful antimicrobial substance was rapidly renewed.
And
today, usage of safe, natural colloidal silver has become popular with millions
of Americans who have experienced its phenomenal healing and infection-fighting
benefits.
What’s
more, many modern-day medical doctors and clinical researchers are embracing
colloidal silver usage, as well.
As Dr.
Joseph Weissman, M.D. board certified immunologist and Assistant Clinical
Professor at the University of California Medical School has stated:
"Today,
many antibiotics are losing the battle with germs. Fortunately, the best germ
killer, which was discovered over 2,000 years ago, is finally getting the
proper attention from medical science - natural silver.
I
sincerely recommend that everyone have electrically generated colloidal silver
in their home as an antiseptic, antibacterial and antifungal agent."
And as
Dr. Ron Surowitz, D.O., M.D., former head of the Florida Osteopathic Medical
Association has stated:
"Sometimes
a treatment can be worse than the illness, but not in the case of Colloidal
Silver.
I have
my patients spray or swish Colloidal Silver in their mouths from one to three
times daily, depending on the severity of their condition…or, in a dose of one
quarter to one teaspoon, and even up to one tablespoon, one to three times
daily for situations that are more problematic.
I also have them use it in small amounts daily
as a preventative...It's interesting how
many of my patients improve with the use of Colloidal Silver. It enhances the immune system where other
antibiotics cause yeast overgrowth...
...[As
an example] one patient had persistent yeast infections. Having had no success
with both prescription and non-prescription treatments, she called me, at her
wit's end.
I
suggested that she try a douche of two teaspoons of Colloidal Silver in a quart
of water. Three days later she was evaluated in my office. The symptoms of her
yeast infection had vanished, and there was no visible sign of infection."
And as
Herbert Slavin, M.D., founder and director of the Institute of Advanced
Medicine, Lauderhill, Florida has stated:
"...Ionic silver is increasingly being
recognized for its broad-spectrum antimicrobial qualities and the fact that it
presents virtually none of the side-effects related to antibiotics.
Ionic silver is entirely non-toxic to the
body...Reports of any pathogens developing resistance to ionic silver are rare.
Some reports indicate it even kills
drug-resistant strains of germs.
Ionic
silver is also a powerful tissue-healing agent, so much so that it has been
used topically for decades in burn centers and currently represents one of the fastest
growing sectors – if not the fastest growing sector – in wound care today.
The
fact that ionic silver is effective against a very broad range of bacteria is
well established and, due to recent advances in the delivery of ionic silver
together with the problems associated with antibiotics, it is being used in a
rapidly growing range of dietary-supplement, medical, and industrial products.
...A study at the University of Arizona
recently showed ionic silver to be effective against the coronavirus that researchers
use as the surrogate for SARS."
And as
board certified Clinical Nutritionist Byron J. Richards, CCN, has stated;
"…The
high efficacy in the use of silver to kill bacteria and fungus is not in question by anyone. This does not mean it kills every type of bacteria or
fungus. And in the ones it does kill it does not mean it kills all of them.
It
simply means that the antibiotic properties of silver are quite potent – and
the risk to human health in terms of toxicity is negligible. This is a far better risk/benefit profile than
commonly used antibiotics."
Finally,
as Dr. Jonathan Wright, M.D., of the famous Tahoma Clinic in Washington State
has written:
"Colloidal silver just might be the next
germ-fighting wonder drug. And not just for the serious threats making
headlines: It's also effective against
bacterial infections like strep throat, viruses like the flu, and fungal infections like Candida.
No
matter how much a germ mutates, it can't change enough to escape the damaging
effects of colloidal silver. And in the process, the silver doesn't harm human tissue or kill off the good
bacteria in the intestine the way antibiotics and other medications do…
…Beginning
in the 1970s, several independent researchers found that silver ions easily
destroy Candida and other fungi. But it wasn't until a pilot study during the
mid- 1990s that included human patients suffering from terminal AIDS that
medical researchers established solid evidence showing just how quick and
effective silver ions can be in the treatment of Candida as well as HIV.
In
this study, nine individuals who were near death were divided into two
subgroups. One group suffered from HIV and a terrible Candida infection. The
other group suffered from both HIV and an extreme form of malnutrition (known
as Wasting Syndrome).
The
researchers found that in both groups the colloidal silver was capable of
killing pathogens and purging the bloodstream of germ defenses in order to
restore the immune system."
In
short, we have come back full circle to nature’s wonder cure for infection and
disease: colloidal silver.
What
worked in the beginning against infection and disease continues to work today,
even as prescription antibiotic drugs continue to fall to the wayside, thanks
largely to the crisis of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
And
yes, colloidal silver even kills the superbugs, as thoroughly documented with
numerous clinical studies in my previous article, “Colloidal Silver versus the
Superbugs”.
Learn
More About Colloidal Silver…
http://thesilveredge.com/a-brief-history-of-old-medical-quotes-on-colloidal-silver.shtml
