Pub. 3 2013 Issue 1

20 At the Center of Utah Industry Silver and Medical Technology T he medical community has known about the medical properties associated with silver for thousands of years: • Hippocrates knew silver could be used to heal patients and prevent disease. The Romans were also familiar with it. • Phoenicians stored wine, water, and vinegar in silver containers because they knew it would keep these liquids fresh. • During World War I, when antibiotics were not yet being widely used, doctors turned to silver foil dressings when they were treating patients on the battlefield as a way to fight injury and disease. In a time when antibiotics are sometimes no longer effective against new strains of bacteria, silver merits even more attention from the medical community. And it is getting that attention. The FDA recently approved use of a ventilator breathing tube that has a thin coating of silver on it, because its use reduces the likelihood of a patient on a ventilator developing pneumonia. Silver is also added routinely to some bandages, catheters, and medical instruments, and it has been used to treat burn patients. Beyond that is its usefulness in x-ray technology, especially in developing countries that do not have or cannot afford digital technology. Silver-halide x-rays were the original standard for making x-rays because of their accuracy and because they are inexpensive. Why Silver Works As an Antibacterial Silver cations prevent bacterial cells from forming the chemical enzyme systems that produce the physical structure they need to survive. In other words, the silver cations literally cause bacteria to fall apart. At the same time, despite silver cation’s antimicrobial properties, silver is not toxic to people. In fact, research has shown that it actively promotes new-cell growth. That’s why major companies like Johnson & Johnson continue to make bandages and creams that have silver as one of the active ingredients. Silver is a particularly valuable tool for fighting at least one superbug, MRSA, which is a life-threatening staph germ. It resists almost all chemical antibiotics, but silver still works against MRSA successfully. As a result, medical hospitals are putting silver into catheters, door handles, furniture, needles, paper files stethoscopes, and surgical tools. Interestingly, if someone applies an electric current across silver electrodes, antibiotic action is enhanced at the anode. Scientists think this is because the electrical current causes silver to be released into the bacterial culture. The Role of Silver in X-Ray Films When someone takes an x-ray, the image needs to be stored somehow. Digital x-rays sensors have become a common way to store the image in the U.S. because they are faster, use less radiation, don’t need chemical processing, and can be easily transferred and enhanced. But another way to store the image is to put the image