The following brief excerpts, are taken from the book, The Use of Colloids in Health and Disease by Dr. Alfred B. Searle, of Searle Pharmaceutical fame, published in 1919. The old-English spellings of the illnesses that were successfully treated with colloidal silver back at the turn of the century have been left as they were in the original text.
What I find most interesting is the wide variety of conditions that silver was known to be a successful remedy for…over 90 years ago! Meanwhile, today, we have medical bureaucrats seeking to quash its use in health and medicine, deeming it to be “not safe and effective.” And we have natural health naysayers claiming it to be “without benefit.” Amazing, isn’t it? Who are you going to believe?
Colloidal Silver
When prepared under suitable conditions and properly protected, colloidal silver is quite stable even in the presence of salts and of the normal constituents of the blood. Its destructive actions on toxins is very marked, so that it will protect rabbits from ten times the lethal dose of tetanic or diptheric toxin…Colloidal silver has been used with marked success in the following cases, cited by C.E.A. MacLeaod:
- septic and follicular tonsilitis
- Vincent’s angina
- phlyctenular conjunctivitis
- gonorrhoeal conjunctivitis
- spring catarrh
- impetigo (contagious acne of face and body)
- septic ulcers of legs
- ringworm of body
- tinea versicolor
- soft sores
- suppurative appendicitis after operations
- pustular exzema of scalp and pubes
- chronic eczema of meatus of ear with recurrent boils
- chronic eczema of anterior nares
- offensive discharge in case of chronic suppuration in otitis media
- bromidrosis of feet
- axillae and blind boils of neck
Sir James Cantlie
has found it particularly effective in cases of sprue, dysentery and intestinal troubles.
A. Legge Roe
regards stable colloidal silver as a most useful preparation in ophthalmic practice, and particularly in cases of:
- gonorrhoeal ophthalmia
- purulent ophthalmia of infants
- infected ulcers of the cornea and hypopyon ulcer (tapping of the interior chamber and cautery, and other operative procedures being now rarely required, whilst if perforation does occur it is smaller and more manageable)
- interstitial keratitis, blepharitis, dacryocystitis, and burns brides from russia and other wounds of the cornea
According to this authority, the great chemosis which usually accompanies the use of silver nitrate is avoided and, in his opinion, if colloidal silver were adopted in every case of purulent ophthalmia of infants, “there would be no such thing as impaired sight or blindness from this cause.”
Sir Malcolm Morris
has found that colloidal silver is free from the drawbacks of other preparations of silver, viz. the pain caused and the discoloration of the skin; indeed, instead of producing irritation it has a distinctly soothing effect. It rapidly subdues inflammation and promotes the healing of lesions. He has had remarkable results in enlarged prostate with irritation of the bladder, in pruritis ani and perineal eczema, and in haemorrhoids.
J. Mark Hovell
has found colloidal silver beneficial for permanently restoring the potency of the Eustachian tubes and for reducing nasopharyngeal catarrh.
Colloidal silver has also been used successfully in septic conditions of the mouth (including tonsilitis and quinsies), ear (including Menier’s symptoms and closure to Valsava’s inflation), and in generalized septicemia, leucorrhoea, cystitis, whopping cough, and shingles.
Collosol argentum [an older commercial form of colloidal silver] has also proved useful in influenza, both as a prophylactic and for curative purposes when applied as a spray to the nostrils, for bathing the eyes, and as a gargle for the throat.
B. Seymour Jones
has used an intranasal spray of colloidal silver in ca case of cerebro-spinal meningitis. He has also used colloidal silver with marked advantage in several cases of rhinitis and oedematous enlargement of the posterior ends of the middle and inferior turbinates with true hyperplasia.
