Silver in water

[badnews]

Hi Guys,

Hopefully someone can help.

My Mum puts a piece of silver in drinking tap water when she keeps it in the fridge (or whereever) she said that silver keeps water clean and doesn't make it go stale. She said it's been used for ages and so on...

Does anyone know anything about this? Firstly is it safe? and secondly does it really help?

Very greateful for any knowledge you have about this.

Cheers

 

[Pixel42]

This is the best article I could find, though the source and references aren't exactly unbiased:

http://www.doulton.ca/silver.html

 

[soikins]

According to Wikipedia, silver does have germicidal effects:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver#In_medicine

 

[G O R T]

Does anyone know anything about this? Firstly is it safe? and secondly does it really help?

Sticking a chunk of silver in water is relatively ineffective. Chemical or electrochemical reduction of partical size is commonly required. Silver nitrate has been used topically for some 2000 years on wounds, as has been rubbing silver on the affected area or dressings. Electroplating of dressings with silver has been tried more recently. Colloidal silver is a modern invention along those lines.

Any ingestion of heavy metals not used metabolically is to be avoided! Silver is not chelated and builds up in tissues permanently. Argyria is the name for skin discoloration caused by silver ingestion.

BTW, clean water does not go stale. It must be polluted by organic matter to sustain bacterial growth. Keeping it covered usually suffices.

 

[krelnik]

If you want to see some examples of people affected by Argyria (mentioned by GORT above), check out my page on colloidal silver here:

http://whatstheharm.net/colloidalsilver.html