Why Silver?

Since ancient times silver has been used as a maedicine as well as to accelerate the healing of wounds. Hippocrates, the "father of medicine", wrote that silver had beneficial healing and anti- disease properties. Ancient Phoenicians are supposed to have made the first use of silver. They used to store water, wine and vinegar in silver bottles to prevent spoiling. In the early 1900s people would put silver coins in milk bottles to prolong the freshness of milk. Silver was earlier used in the form of Silver Nitrate but it was later discontinued due to risk involved in causing blindness.

Now why silver imparts antibacterial properties?

Well, silver ions and silver compounds show a toxic effect on some bacetria, viruse, algae, fungi typicla of heavy metals like mercury or lead, but without the high toxicity to humans that are normally associated with these other materials. The germicidal effects of silver can kill many bacteria in vitro. The exact process of silver's germicidal effects is still not entirely understood, although theories exist. Oligodynamic effect is one of which explains the effect on micro-organisms but does not explain the antiviral effects.

The wide antibacterial properties of silver stem up from the chemical properties of its ionised form, Ag+. This ion forms strong molecular bonds with other substances used by bacteria to respire, such as molecules containing sulphur, nitrogen and oxygen. When the Ag+ ions form a complex with these molecules, they are rendered unusable by the bacteria, depriving them of necessary compounds and eventually leading to the bacteria's death.

Silver nitrate solution use continued, then was largely replaced by silver sulfadiazine cream (SSD cream), which had become the 'standard of care' for the antibacterial and antibiotic treatment of several burns until the late 1990s. Now, other options like silver coated dressings are used in addition to SSDs. Silver in the form of SSDs was used on a huge scale during the World War 1 before the advent of antibiotics.

Lately there have been many efforts to use silver as a broad spectrum antibacterial agent, some of them include using silver along with alginate or applying an electric field to enhance its antibacterial properties and many more.

People are now diving into the fields of nanotechnology since the last decade in order to increase the effectiveness, reactivity of silver and to enhance its properties as an antibacterial, antiviral, germicide and pesticide without causing any harmful effect on the Human race.

-Chinmaya Joshi.