Chapter 103 Silver on both shoulders: both a monetary and an industrial metal

The ancient Phoenicians discovered the miraculous function of silver to sterilize bacteria very early on. They put wine in silver bottles to preserve the quality of the wine. This secret is still being circulated in today's famous wineries.Sailors of the British Empire put silver coins into their drinking water jugs during long sea voyages to keep the water clean.Physicians in ancient Greece first discovered that silver has a significant effect on wound healing and can prevent diseases.Ancient Chinese kings often used silver chopsticks to test whether there is poison in food.Silver utensils are widely used in the tableware of European aristocrats, because bacteria cannot survive for a long time on the surface of sterling silver, while wooden tableware is the favorite of bacteria, and stainless steel tableware cannot resist the reproduction of bacteria.Although modern people widely use antibiotics to kill bacteria, the problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics has long plagued the medical field.

For a long time, silver's miraculous killing effect on bacteria and viruses has not been deeply studied.Until recently, the mechanism by which silver kills bacteria was not understood.Silver in water can form a small amount of silver ions to adsorb bacteria and destroy the enzymes they depend on for survival, so that the bacteria will die quickly.According to research, silver ions can kill more than 650 kinds of bacteria in a few minutes, which is 113 times more effective than ordinary antibiotics, without any drug resistance. In terms of medical and health care, millions of people are cross-infected by bacteria and viruses every year in European and American hospitals alone. The follow-up problems of drug resistance caused by the extensive use of antibiotics are enough to make the medical insurance system unsustainable.Hospitals in the UK have begun to use cleaning agents and protective creams containing silver ions to avoid cross-infection problems.Hospitals in the United States have also begun to use gauze, masks, surgical drapes and room interiors containing silver ions in large quantities to avoid cross-infection.

In the 21st century, the industrial demand for silver is under the pressure of explosive growth. In recent years, the total amount of silver used in technology patents in the world far exceeds that of any other metal. If it is said that green environmental protection technology will be the main engine of world economic development in the next few decades, then in this field, silver consumption will experience a blowout growth.