Swallow enough silver for long enough and your skin permanently turns blue-grey
A US Senate candidate dosed himself with colloidal silver in case the millennium bug cut off antibiotics. The shortage never came, but his skin turned grey-blue for good. Argyria happens when silver builds up in the body and sunlight darkens it, much as light develops a photographic film.
The name comes from argyros, Greek for silver, and argyrosis is an older, loosely used variant sometimes reserved for the eye. Taking in silver compounds over months or years lets them collect in tissues. When those pale compounds meet sunlight they break down into silver metal or silver sulfide, leaving microscopic dark particles lodged in the skin. That is why the discoloration shows most strongly on sun-exposed areas, and why the eyes can be affected too: deposits in the conjunctiva are usually harmless, but in the lens they can cause serious damage.
There are two patterns. Local argyria marks small patches, often from silver-containing eye drops or other topical products. Generalised argyria spreads across much of the body after long-term swallowing or inhaling of silver, whether as a home remedy or through factory work with the metal. The change is not life-threatening, but it does not fade: silver lodged in tissue cannot be removed, so the colour deepens as exposure continues.
Silver itself has real uses. Its germ-killing oligodynamic effect earns it a place in some medical devices, and short, low exposures carry little risk. Colloidal silver, a suspension of tiny particles, was once taken internally for many diseases until antibiotics like penicillin displaced it in the 1940s. The US Environmental Protection Agency set a lifetime reference dose of 5 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day in 1991. Doctors have recognised the discoloration since at least the mid-1800s.
Stan Jones, a Libertarian who ran for the Senate in 2002 and 2006, is the best-known example; he insisted he would do it all again. Paul Karason, whose blue face drew press attention in 2007, used homemade silver solutions for sinus and skin problems and kept taking them until he died in 2013. Rosemary Jacobs, who developed argyria from childhood nose drops, became an outspoken critic of health fraud.
Source: Argyria
