In 1918, sterile-field surgery under anesthetic was common, X-ray machines were employed, telephones were in use, and hospitals were electrified and served by motor vehicles. In those days, doctors commonly used alternative medicines and modern antibiotics were unheard of, just the opposite of today. From 1918 to 1919 the Spanish influenza pandemic (a world-wide epidemic) flashed around the world, killing somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. In fact, more people died of "Spanish 'flu" in a single year than in four years of the Black Death (the Bubonic Plague) lasting from 1347 to 1351. Not Spanish, the flu is thought to have actually "originated", that is, made the genetic shift or mutation, in Kansas! The 'flu was so deadly that it could kill a healthy male soldier in a few hours; their lungs would fill with bloody fluid and they would literally drown. It is estimated one half of the US WWI war deaths never fell to a bullet, but rather to the 'flu, and at least 675,000 American citizens died from the disease. World War I is credited with killing 15,000,000 people in 4 years; Spanish influenza killed perhaps twice that number or more in a single year. Think about those numbers for a moment, and reflect on the outcry concerning West Nile Virus or SARS. Neither together has killed as many people as the Spanish influenza killed in any major US city in a single peek day. The effects of the 'flu was so serious it depressed the average US lifespan by 10 years. It had such a profound impact on American culture, older Americans can still recall the playground rhyme: "I had a little bird, its name was Enza. I opened the window, and in-flu-enza." People were not allowed on trains without public health certificates, movie theaters were shut down, people were ordered to wear gauze masks, and entire towns and cities were placed under quarantine. It also had a lasting impact on ferret owners because scientists discovered ferrets could catch the 'flu. Not only did this drive the desire to use ferrets as lab animals for influenza research, BUT, it also instilled a fear of ferrets as possible 'flu carriers, making them unpopular as ratters, while at the same time causing a shift to rat poisons and helping to spur passage of many anti-ferret laws (I'm sure you recognize the parallel between SARS and what is being done to civet cats). It is no coincidence ferrets became unpopular in the early 1920s. Many of the ferret farms went out of business, advertisements for ferrets in farming magazines plummeted, and ratting with ferrets virtually went extinct in the USA overnight. All these changes were because or exacerbated by the 'flu. So what is the point? It is that most of the alternative medicines and supplements that are being promoted today, including colloidal silver, where around then, and they were ineffective in stopping, slowing, or curing disease. They didn't stop influenza, or polio, or tuberculosis, or typhus, or typhoid, or cholera, or plague, or anthrax, or hundreds of other nasty little bugs that today are commonly treated at the local doctor's office with a course of antibiotics. People died using folk remedies (now called alternative medicines or nutritional supplements) that today would have survived with a simple dose of antibiotics, or from periodic immunizations (vaccines). If they were not all that effective then, how can they be better now? You can use this stuff, and for the most part they will be harmless because they have NO value, although for others, the effects on ferrets are unknown, perhaps even dangerous. It's your money being wasted, and your ferrets that suffer. You have to face the ethical and moral consequences on your own. Bob C [Posted in FML issue 4407]