For thousands of years silver has been used as a healing and anti-bacterial agent by civilizations throughout the world. Its medical, preservative and restorative powers can be traced as far back as the ancient Greek and Roman Empires. Long before the development of modern pharmaceuticals, silver was employed as a germicide and antibiotic.

Consider these interesting facts:

The Greeks used silver vessels to keep water and other liquids fresh. The writings of Herodotus, the Greek philosopher and historian, date the use of silver to before the birth of Christ.
The Roman Empire stored wine in silver urns to prevent spoilage.
The use of silver is mentioned in ancient Egyptian writings. In the Middle Ages, silverware protected the wealthy from the full brunt of the plague. Before the advent of modern germicides and antibiotics, it was known that disease-causing pathogens could not survive in the presence of silver.
Consequently, silver was used in dishware, drinking vessels and eating utensils. In particular, the wealthy stored and ate their food from silver vessels to keep bacteria from growing. The Chinese emperors and their courts ate with silver chopsticks.
The Druids have left evidence of their use of silver.
Settlers in the Australian outback suspend silverware in their water tanks to retard spoilage.
Pioneers trekking across the American West found that if they placed silver or copper coins in their casks of drinking water, it kept the water safe from bacteria, algae, etc.
All along the frontier, silver dollars were put in milk to keep it fresh. Some of us remember our grandparents doing the same.
Silver leaf was used to combat infection in wounds sustained by troops during World War I. Prior to the introduction of antibiotics, Colloidal Silver was used widely in hospitals and has been known as a bactericide for at least 1200 years.
In the early 1800s, doctors used silver sutures in surgical wounds with very successful results.
In Ayurvedic medicine, silver is used in small amounts as a tonic, elixir or rejuvenative agent for patients debilitated by age or disease.

Silver Re-Discovered
Not until the late 1800's did western scientists re-discover what had been known for thousands of years - that silver is a powerful germ fighter. Medicinal silver compounds were then developed and silver became commonly used as a medicine. By the early part of the 1900s, the use of silver as an antibacterial substance was becoming widespread. By 1940 there were approximately four dozen different silver compounds on the market being used to treat every known infectious disease. These were available in oral, injectable, and topical forms.

Although there were a few flare-ups of negative publicity regarding medicinal silver in the early 1900s, (due to the overuse of certain types of protein-bound silver compounds causing a discoloration of the skin called argyria and due to a supply of improperly prepared and unstable silver) reputable medical journal reports demonstrated that a properly prepared colloidal dispersion of silver was completely suitable with no adverse side effects. T. H. Anderson Wells reported in the Lancet (February 16th, 1918) that a preparation of colloidal silver was "used intravenously. . . without any irritation of the kidneys and with no pigmentation of the skin. "

New knowledge of body chemistry gave rise to the enormous array of applications for colloidal disinfectants and medicines and for on-going research into the capabilities and possibilities for silver colloids. However, Silver’s “new-found” fame as a superior infection-fighting agent is becoming the go-to for daily medicine.