s PATENT. OFFICE DISINFECTIVE AND ANTISEPTIC COMPOUND son 'rnn TREATMENT or means, scans, AND THE Linn John H. Miiller, Secane, Pa.; Anna L. Muller and Provident Trust 00., executors oi. said John H.
Miller, deceased, assignors to Silver Oxide Products Company, Incorporated, a corpora- UNITED; STATE tion of Pennsylvania No Bra 6 Claims.
This application for Letters Patent is, in part, a continuation of my pending application for Letters Patent, entitled Disinfective and antiseptic compound for the treatment of ulcers,
sores and the like, filed September 27, 1933,
which has received the Serial'Number 691,246, and my invention relates to the preparation of a fluid or semi-fluid compound having a disin- Iective and antiseptic eflect when applied to the Application May 25, 1936, Serial No. 81,645
its mass so that, on coming into contact with the watery fluids of the body; the small particle of silver oxide is rapidly converted into a. solution of silver hydroxide which, while highly eflicient as a disinfectant, acts as such in a quite diiierent 5 v way from that of common silver'oxide applied in more ponderable particles in that it has no tendency to cauterize and injurehealthy tissue and is not liable to bring about any permanent stains 10 treatment of ulcers, sores, abrasions, various skin n e b y to w h t is a p Such Silver 85 10 eruptions or the likeoi': to any more or less inis evolved from my compound in the deoxidation iected surfaces of a human or animal body of the silver oxide passing off with the wastes of whether such surfaces exist in internal or exthebody. s
ternal portions of the body and which can be It is also true, I have found, that the exceedapplied without injury to healthy cellular tissue ingly small particle size oi-the colloidal silver ox 15 and my invention consists in a colloidal suspension and distribution of silver oxide in a nonreactive and inert fluid or semi-fluid vehicle and particularly, and forI believe, the best results, in acolloldal suspension of silver oxide in one of lde enables it to pass through the normal skin of man or animal, or through the pores promptly reaching the more watery tissue and entering the blood stream, no doubt as a hydroxide or other form of ionic silver solution and thus reaching the or a mixture of aliphatic hydrocarbons of infected re ions of th b dvn t rdina a sthev paramn series comprehended within the sible by superficial application of a medicinal general formula Crimn+2- This class of hydrocompound.
carbons is, to a marked degree, nonreactive with My new compound can be conveniently manucolloidal silver oxide. The inactivity of the paraffactured by precipitating silveroxide from an 2 fln hydrocarbons toward silver oxide constitutes aqueous solution of silver nitrate by addition of an important factor in my new remedial coman excess of sodium hydroxide. The precipi-' pound because this very active oxide should extated oxide is filtered and washed upon suction ist in the preparation as such without any chemi. filterswitii distilled water until free from other 6 cal reaction with the fluid or semi-fluid carrier. products of the reaction. The residual mass of It is a matter of chemical knowledge that all or finely divided silver oxide is then freed as far as practically all vehicles of an organic nature canpossible from water by continued suction and is not remain in contact with silver oxide without then'dehydrated in special ovens protectedfrom more or less rapid reduction of the oxide tometai ust or other r d in influences. It is then or formation of complex silver compounds and mixed in known ratio by weight with the non- 35 hence'such mixtures cannot be constrihad as mixreactive hydrocarbon vehicle. This mixture is tures of silver oxide of known composition. then passed through a colloid mill and is in!- In referring to the condition of the silver oxide ther subjected to dispersion in a pebble mill until as colloidal, I mean that the particle size of the requ ed particle size is obtained. This, when 40 oxide distributed through the inert vehicle should carri d out to a suflicient extent, produces a colpredominantly and preferably entirely be of dimensions less than that of a micron and. in practice I have found it, desirable that the particles should predominantly be of dimensions approximating one-half to three-tenths or less of a vehicle so that, on application to a surface the contained silver oxide particles come into contact with the treated surface very shortly after application, and, also because this fine, division 7, of the silver oxide results in giving to each-parti-- cle a relatively enormous surface in relation to loidal suspension of known silver oxide content which can be subsequently diluted with a nonreactive hydrocarbon or hydrocarbon mixtures, (paraflins), of any desired consistency so as to give a final product of any required fluidity and 45 mon use but any desired concentration of the 50,,
colloidal silver oxide can be prepared at the discretion of the physician in the treatment of special cases.' I havefound in practice that to produce a proper colloidal comminution of the silver oxide so that it will contain particles of 55 I contact with the surface until the fluid or semifluid vehicle is practically denuded of the suspended colloidal silver oxide particles and the silver oxide particles coming thus progressively in contact with the treated surface pass into the normal skin or its pores and into contact with the more watery cellular tissue lying beneath it or adjacent to it into direct contact with cellular tissue not protected by the normal skin and/or absorbed into such cellular tissue and thence pass into the blood stream without any caustic action upon the surfaces of tissues treated, such as would tend to injure normal tissue and presumably as a silver hydroxide solution the effect being to act as a disinfectant of not only the immediate surface treated but also adjacent portions of the body not directly accessible, this being accomplished without such liability of bringing about deposits of silver in the treated surface or elsewhere forming permanent discolorizations.
.My new compound, which is a mixture of colloidal silver oxide in an inactive vehicle, takeson a mildly alkaline nature when brought ir i contact with the water invariably present in living tissues. In this way silver oxide mixture is purposely used as a reservoir for production of silver hydroxide, a mild alkaline oxidant which is harmless to normal cellular structures and comparable in alkalinity with blood plasma itself.
It will be understood that the essential feature of my new medicinal compound lies in the com bination of a colloidal subdivision and distribution' of the silver oxide with the inert vehicle which minimizes any tendency to the formation of aggregates of the oxide particles so that, on application, the colloidal particles of silver oxide come progressively into contact with the tissues of the body to which it is applied and are available for rapid absorption thereby, presumably as a silver hydroxide solution, and certainly without any such cauterizing effect upon the tissues treated as is often brought about by the application of the common silver oxide in more ponderant states of subdivision and without danger of bringing about a staining of the skin caused by silver in the reduced condition, such as has been liable to occur on theapplic'ation of other silver compounds.
Having now described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is: g
1. The method of preparing a form of silver oxide which will dissolve and form the hydroxide without undergoing substantial reduction to form metallic silver when brought into contact with the human skin, which comprises precipitating silver oxide in an aqueous vehicle, dryingsuch precipitate and then mechanically grinding such oxide. while protected against moisture by an inert, oily, anhydrous vehicle until it has an average particle size of less than onemicron diameter.
2. A method as specified in claim 1, in which the grinding is continued until the average particle size of the silver oxide is less than one-half of a micron.
3. Anhydrous colloidal silver oxide in the form of particles of an average diameter of less than one micron and small enough so that when a thin film of a dispersion of such particles in an inert, oily, anhydrous vehicle is brought into contact with a moist body such as the human skin, the silver particles will migrate to the contact boundary and pass into solution hs silver hydroxide without leaving any substantial surface markin of reduced silver. I
4. Silver oxide as specified in claim 3, in which the average particle size is less than one-half a micron.
5. A dispersion in an inert, anhydrous, oily vehicle of silver oxide; in the form of colloidal particles of average diameter of less than one micron and small enough so that when a thin film of such dispersion is brought into contact with a moist body such as a human skin, the silver particles will migrate to the contact boundary and pass into solution as silver hydroxide without leaving any substantial surface marking of reduced silver.
6. A dispersion as specified in claim 5 in which the inert vehicle is an aliphatic hydrocarbon of the paraffln series.
JOHN H. MULLER.