Silver Is Coming to the Apothecary

There are some things in an apothecary that seem to belong there so naturally that you wonder why they ever left.

Silver has always felt like one of those things to me.

Long before modern antibiotics, before antiseptic products lined pharmacy shelves, and before we had the vocabulary to describe exactly what microorganisms were doing, people had already noticed that silver behaved differently from many other materials.

Silver vessels were used to store liquids. Silver coins found their way into milk and other stored liquids. Silver was incorporated into various historical medical preparations and materials used in wound care.

It was practical household knowledge.

It was historical medicine.

And eventually, it became a fascinating little corner of medical history.

Now, silver is finding its way back onto my apothecary shelf.

A silver preparation is coming to Morningstar Medicinals.

And I'm making it myself.

(Obviously.)

A Brief History of Silver

Silver has been part of human material culture for thousands of years, but its history in medicine is particularly interesting.

The ancient Greeks and Romans used silver vessels and utensils, and historical accounts describe silver being placed in stored liquids. Silver-containing preparations also appeared in early medical texts and were incorporated into various forms of medical care.

By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, silver compounds had become part of Western medical practice. Silver nitrate, for example, was incorporated into medical preparations and was used in historical wound-care applications.

Then came the antibiotic era. Penicillin changed medicine.

Then came sulfonamides, tetracyclines, macrolides, and the enormous pharmaceutical toolbox we have today. Silver became less central to everyday medical practice as a result, but it never completely disappeared.

Silver-containing materials and compounds continue to have specific applications in modern medicine and medical technology.

So when we talk about bringing silver back into the apothecary, we're not really resurrecting something that vanished. We're picking up a thread that has been running through human history for a very long time.

So What Am I Actually Making?

The preparation I'm starting with is a 20 ppm, ionic + colloidal silver solution.

In other words, the finished preparation contains both silver ions and suspended silver particles.

I'm starting with this particular preparation because I wanted to begin with a clearly defined formulation rather than immediately creating an entire collection of different concentrations and preparations.

And, of course, I wanted to make it properly.

So naturally, I have immersed myself into a rabbit hole of silver chemistry, production methods, historical literature, and the science surrounding these preparations.

This is where the herbalist part of my brain gets giddy, tbh. Because, for me, making anything in the apothecary isn't just about putting ingredients together. It's about understanding your raw materials. It's about understanding your process. And it's about knowing what you actually ended up with.

The Making of Morningstar Silver

After much research, I decided to invest in the SilverLungs silver generator for production.

One of the things I particularly appreciate about this system is the level of process control it gives me when producing silver solutions.

When you're working with something where the physical characteristics of the finished preparation matter, I want to be able to follow a defined process rather than simply guessing at what's happening inside the bottle.

The SilverLungs system provides a documented production protocol, and that's what I'll be following for Morningstar Silver. But I didn't want to simply take a machine's word for it and put a bottle on the shelf. I wanted my own process of verification.

So every batch gets tested for its ionic silver concentration during production. The ultra-pure water I use is tested beforehand, and the finished preparation is checked against the intended concentration.

If a batch doesn't meet my production specifications, it doesn't get bottled.

And then there's my favorite part:

the laser.

pew pew

I use a laser as a visual inspection tool for the solution, following the SilverLungs process, to look for evidence of larger particles or aggregation. It's a wonderfully simple little check that lets me actually look at what's happening in the solution rather than simply assuming that everything went according to plan.

There's something very satisfying about that. You make a batch. You test it. You look at it. You document it. You bottle it.

And suddenly this beautiful, almost invisible little preparation exists because you made it with your own hands.

That's the part of running an apothecary that I never get tired of.

Why Silver?

Because it's fascinating. Because it has a remarkably long history of human use. Because its chemistry is genuinely interesting. And because I love the places where traditional material knowledge and modern science overlap.

Silver isn't an herb, obviously.

It doesn't have a constitutional pattern or a bitter principle or an affinity for a particular tissue in the way our botanical medicines do. But it does have its own story. Its own chemistry. Its own very interesting relationship with the physical and biological world.

And that makes it an interesting addition to an apothecary that has always been about looking a little more closely at the tools available to us.

I don't think we need to choose between old and new.

Give me the old remedies.
Give me the modern instruments.

Let me put them on the same workbench and see what happens.

The Morningstar Approach

If you've been following Morningstar for any length of time, you know that I am a little particular about how things are made.

I want to know my herbs. I want to know my extraction methods. I want to know my measurements. I want to understand what is happening inside the bottle.

Silver is no different.

I'm making it in small batches, using ultra-pure water and high-purity elemental silver, with a defined production process and batch testing.

That's what I love about small-batch apothecary work. I get to know what I'm making. I get to watch it come together. I get to document the process. And I get to decide that good enough isn't good enough.

Coming October 11

The first Morningstar Silver will be available with the October 11 online drop. I'll also be bringing it to the Saturday Woodbine markets in Pace beginning in September.

I'll have more information available with the product about its composition, production, storage, and the terminology surrounding silver preparations, because I want you to know what's in the bottle and understand what you're buying.

For now, though, I just wanted to share what has been happening behind the scenes.

There's something wonderfully old-fashioned about making silver in an apothecary.

The equipment on my workbench may look decidedly modern, but the idea itself feels ancient:

Take something interesting.
Learn it well.
Make it carefully.
Know what you made.

That's what an apothecary has always been to me. And I'm very happy to be bringing a little silver to Morningstar.

Coming October 11.

See you in the apothecary. 🌿

— Danni
Morningstar Medicinals