The Future: Using Electrodes to Treat Infections

Reclaiming an Ancient Antimicrobial Tradition in the Age of Antibiotic Resistance

“The natural healing force in each one of us is the greatest force in getting well.”

— Hippocrates

A History Older Than Medicine Itself

Electrodes made from particular metals have powerful antimicrobial properties — antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal. The story of copper and silver as antimicrobial agents is not a fringe hypothesis or an alternative medicine curiosity. It is one of the oldest, most repeatedly validated observations in the history of medicine and one of the most commercially inconvenient, since neither metal can be patented in its elemental form.

Using copper and silver to prevent the transmission of infection has a long and fascinating history, dating back to at least 4,000 BCE. Ancient Egyptians used copper vessels to sterilise drinking water and applied copper compounds to infected wounds. Sanskrit and ancient Greek texts document the use of copper for purifying water and treating skin conditions. From ancient Roman times to the present day, potable water containers, cisterns, and wells have been kept clear of pathogens simply by placing silver coins or copper vessels in contact with the water. The anti-pathogenic properties of silver and copper ions disperse through water — an electrolyte medium — with remarkable effectiveness.

Silver nitrate was used topically throughout the 1800s for the treatment of burns, ulcerations, and infected wounds. A variety of modern-day medical products, including ointments, bandages, surgical tools, and catheters, employ silver-based technologies currently in clinical use around the world.

Copper-plated door handles, bed railings, light switches, and grab bars are installed in many progressive hospitals to prevent the transmission of pathogens, since microbes are killed on copper surfaces on contact, often within minutes. A landmark clinical trial conducted in intensive care units in the United States demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in healthcare-associated infections in rooms with copper-alloy surfaces compared to standard rooms. The City of Vancouver applied this evidence directly: copper-painted grab bars on public transit were introduced as a COVID-19 transmission prevention measure, with documented success. This was not experimental intuition. It was the application of well-established science.

Reliance on silver and copper as infection-treatment agents declined sharply after World War II with the introduction of antibiotics. For several decades, antibiotics appeared to offer a simpler and more standardised solution. That assumption has not survived contact with the biology of bacterial evolution. The most recent research into silver nanoparticles as antiviral therapy is particularly significant.

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The Antibiotic Crisis: Why These Metals Matter More Than Ever

The World Health Organization lists antimicrobial resistance as one of the ten greatest threats to global health. The pipeline of new antibiotics is nearly empty: the pharmaceutical industry has largely abandoned antibiotic development because the return on investment is unfavourable compared to chronic disease medications that patients take for decades. Bacteria, by contrast, have continued to evolve. There are now bacterial pathogens, including extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, and pan-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii for which no effective antibiotic currently exists. The World Health Organization estimates that antimicrobial resistance could cause ten million deaths annually by 2050 if current trends continue.

Against this backdrop, copper and silver are not historical curiosities. They are clinically urgent resources that the antibiotic era temporarily displaced but did not replace. The critical distinction between conventional antibiotics and metal ion antimicrobials is this: bacteria have not developed meaningful resistance to metal ion toxicity in thousands of years of contact. Conventional antibiotics typically target a single bacterial enzyme or cellular process, a specific receptor or pathway that can be altered by a single gene mutation, producing resistance. Metal ions attack bacteria through multiple simultaneous mechanisms involving membrane integrity, enzyme systems, respiratory function, and DNA mechanisms so fundamental and so broad that circumventing them all simultaneously would require a level of genetic adaptation that comes with severe fitness costs. This is why silver and copper remain effective against MRSA and other multiply resistant organisms that defeat the full arsenal of conventional antibiotics.

A landmark 2013 paper published in Science Translational Medicine by Morones-Ramirez and colleagues demonstrated something even more significant: silver at sub-inhibitory concentrations, too low to kill bacteria directly, could restore the effectiveness of antibiotics against bacteria that had become fully resistant to them. The mechanism involves silver’s disruption of bacterial membrane integrity and oxidative metabolism, which re-sensitises resistant bacteria to antibiotics they had previously defeated. Silver is not merely an alternative to antibiotics. In combination, it may restore the clinical utility of antibiotics that resistance has rendered obsolete.

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Silver: Mechanisms of Antimicrobial Action

To be antimicrobially effective, silver must first ionise. It is silver in its ionic form — Ag+ — and not in its elemental form that is antimicrobial. An atom of silver has a neutral charge; removing a negatively charged electron ionises it and transforms it into its positively charged ionic form. In Bio-electrode Therapy, this ionisation is accomplished by the judicious placement of the copper electrode, creating the microcurrent between the two electrode metals. Electrons and ions then flow through the tissues, meridians, and blood to target the site of infection.

Silver ions exert their antimicrobial effect through several simultaneous mechanisms:

Interference with cellular respiration.  Silver ions bind to and inhibit the enzyme systems involved in bacterial respiration, effectively suffocating bacterial cells by disrupting their ability to generate energy.

DNA damage and inhibition of replication.  Silver ions interact with bacterial DNA, interfering with the cell’s ability to replicate and repair itself. This prevents proliferation and can trigger bacterial cell death.

Protein disruption.  Silver ions react with thiol groups on bacterial proteins, the sulfur-containing chemical groups essential for protein function destroying normal biological activity and causing structural collapse of critical cellular proteins.

Membrane disruption.  Silver ions compromise the integrity of bacterial cell membranes, causing leakage of cellular contents and ultimately cell death.

Antiviral activity.  Silver ions and nanoparticles have demonstrated antiviral activity against a broad range of viruses, including enveloped viruses such as influenza, HIV, and herpes viruses. The primary mechanism involves binding to viral surface proteins and disrupting the lipid envelope that enveloped viruses require for cell entry. Silver nanoparticles have also demonstrated activity against coronaviruses through envelope disruption.

Antifungal activity.  Silver ions disrupt fungal enzyme systems and interfere with fungal cell wall synthesis, making them effective against common fungal skin infections including tinea and candida species.

The breadth of these mechanisms operating simultaneously across multiple cellular targets is precisely why bacterial and fungal resistance to silver has not developed in the same way as resistance to conventional antibiotics.

“Electrified silver offers several advantages over previous forms… There are no other ions besides silver to burden the tissues. The current ‘injects’ or drives the silver ions further than simple diffusion can. Moreover, it’s especially well-suited for use against several kinds of bacteria simultaneously. It kills even antibiotic-resistant strains, and also works on fungus infections.”

— Dr. Robert O. Becker, The Body Electric

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Copper: A Distinct and Complementary Mechanism

Copper’s antimicrobial properties are well established and mechanistically distinct from silver’s. Where silver acts primarily through sustained ion release and biochemical interference, copper kills through what researchers term contact killing, a rapid, multi-target destruction that occurs within minutes of pathogen contact with a copper surface or copper ion environment.

The mechanisms through which copper exerts its antimicrobial effect include:

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation.  Copper ions catalyse the generation of highly reactive oxygen species — including hydrogen peroxide and hydroxyl radicals — that cause oxidative damage to bacterial membranes, proteins, and nucleic acids simultaneously. This oxidative assault is rapid and difficult for pathogens to defend against.

Direct membrane disruption.  Copper ions compromise the structural integrity of bacterial and fungal cell membranes, causing leakage of essential cellular contents and triggering cell death.

Direct viral genome destruction.  This is copper’s most clinically significant distinction from silver. While silver primarily disrupts viral envelopes and surface proteins, copper ions directly degrade viral nucleic acids — both RNA and DNA — irreversibly destroying the virus’s genetic material and preventing any possibility of replication or recovery. This has been demonstrated against influenza, norovirus, coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2, and other significant human pathogens. Copper surfaces can inactivate SARS-CoV-2 within four hours; stainless steel surfaces allow the virus to remain viable for up to seventy-two hours.

Antifungal activity.  Copper’s antifungal properties are particularly strong — copper compounds have been the primary agricultural antifungal since the development of Bordeaux mixture in the nineteenth century. Copper disrupts fungal cell wall biosynthesis and enzyme systems critical to fungal metabolism.

The clinical implication of copper’s direct genomic destruction of viruses is significant. For viral infections — where silver’s mechanism of envelope disruption is helpful but incomplete — copper provides a deeper and more definitive antimicrobial action. For viral infections of the skin and superficial tissues, copper is the primary metal of clinical interest, with silver as a complementary agent.

Copper and Shingles: A Mechanistic Case

Herpes zoster — shingles is caused by varicella-zoster virus (VZV), an enveloped double-stranded DNA virus. Following primary infection as chickenpox in childhood, the virus establishes latency in dorsal root ganglia and can reactivate decades later as shingles, producing the characteristic dermatomal rash and, in many patients, severe and persistent neuropathic pain.

Copper’s antimicrobial mechanism is mechanistically well-matched to VZV. The virus is enveloped, copper disrupts that envelope. It carries a DNA genome, copper directly degrades viral DNA. Clinical application of a copper ionic solution to the affected skin surface over an active shingles outbreak targets both of these vulnerabilities simultaneously.

The clinical approach is straightforward: apply copper ionic solution to the intact or healing skin over the affected dermatomal distribution. The solution should not be applied to open blisters or broken skin — this is a contraindication for any metal ion solution application. The antiviral action occurs at the skin surface and within the superficial dermal layers through transdermal ion delivery. In combination with the BeT electrode protocol targeting the relevant spinal dermatome through the meridian system, the approach addresses both the surface viral load and the deeper neurological component of the condition.

Clinical observation over many years of practice supports this approach for both reducing the duration of the acute outbreak and alleviating the associated pain. Postherpetic neuralgia — the persistent neuropathic pain that follows shingles in a significant proportion of patients, particularly older adults — responds to the BeT electrode protocols for neuropathic pain described in Chapter 9, combined with ongoing copper solution application to the affected skin area.

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Dr. Robert Becker and the Science of Electrically Driven Silver Ion Delivery

The most important clinical validation of metal ion delivery through electrical current was provided by Dr. Robert O. Becker, the pioneer of bioelectric medicine whose work underpins much of the theoretical foundation of Bio-electrode Therapy.

Dr. Becker’s landmark case involved a Vietnam War veteran presenting with a serious osteomyelitic infection of the femur resulting from a leg wound. After a year of failed antibiotic treatment, amputation had been considered inevitable. Dr. Becker placed electrodes on either side of the infected wound site and administered an external electrical microcurrent, using silver electrodes to drive silver ions directly into the infected bone tissue. The infection resolved. The veteran walked out of the hospital on two healthy legs. Dr. Becker went on to conduct extensive clinical trials, effectively treating infections in hundreds of patients using this electrically driven silver ion delivery approach.

What Becker demonstrated was a principle of profound importance: electrical current does not merely kill pathogens at the electrode surface. It drives antimicrobial ions deeper into tissues than passive diffusion could ever reach. The current “injects” the silver ions — as Becker himself described it — transporting them through the electrolyte medium of tissue fluid into sites of infection that topical application and even systemic antibiotics could not adequately penetrate.

This principle connects directly to Bio-electrode Therapy’s hypothesis about systemic ion transport through the meridian system. Becker used an external electrical device to generate the driving current. Bio-electrode Therapy proposes that the body’s own endogenous electrical microcurrent — directed and amplified by the strategic placement of copper and silver electrodes on acupuncture points — can accomplish the same transport more elegantly, more safely, and without the need for external electrical equipment. The 0.46-volt galvanic potential generated by the copper-silver electrode pair matches the body’s endogenous bioelectric range, making it the ideal vehicle for ion transport through living tissue.

Becker also invented and patented silver nylon — a wound dressing material in which silver threads woven into nylon fabric provide sustained silver ion release at the wound site through the conductive medium of wound exudate. The mechanism is essentially the same as that exploited when a liquid silver ionic solution is applied to infected skin: the electrolyte medium — wound fluid or skin moisture — carries silver ions continuously to the site of infection. Becker’s wound dressing and the liquid silver application described in this chapter are expressions of the same fundamental principle.

The current conventional belief is that silver ionic conduction through cell membranes is not capable of traversing more than minute distances in body tissues — limiting silver to topical treatment only. BeT proposes that the unique ion transport properties of the Chinese meridian system, combined with the galvanic microcurrent of the copper-silver electrode pair, expand this reach systemically. It is the ionic conduction of silver and copper that generates the anti-pathogenic properties of metals in infected tissues.

“The current conventional belief is that silver ionic conduction occurs through cell membranes but is not capable of traversing more than minute distances in body tissues. However, when using silver, gold and copper electrodes on the Jing-Well acupuncture points, as explained in Bio-electrode Therapy, the antimicrobial ions can be transported through the electrolyte medium of the body and can penetrate systemically, targeting specific tissues or organs.”

— Les Moncrieff, R.Ac. — clinical hypothesis grounded in forty-two years of practice

This hypothesis is supported by direct clinical observation. The author has used this approach for treating tooth infections, deep tissue infections in the bone and periodontal structures — in himself and in hundreds of patients over many years, with consistent and remarkable results. The dental meridian relationships in the BeT framework allow precise targeting of the relevant meridian circuit, and the clinical response, reduction of infection, pain relief, and in many cases resolution without antibiotic intervention provides consistent observational support for the hypothesis.

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The Combined Silver-Copper Solution: A Broad-Spectrum Topical Approach

Building on the established antimicrobial properties of silver and copper individually, an emerging clinical application under active investigation is the combination of silver and copper in a 50/50 aqueous ionic solution, applied topically to intact or healing skin over sites of active infection.

The rationale for this combination is the complementary and non-overlapping nature of each metal’s antimicrobial mechanisms. Silver provides sustained antibacterial and antiviral activity through ionic release, DNA interference, and enzyme inhibition — a mechanism sustained over time as ions continue to release from the solution. Copper provides rapid contact killing through reactive oxygen species generation, membrane disruption, and direct viral genome destruction — a mechanism that is immediate and devastating to pathogens on contact. Applied together in solution, they address the full antimicrobial spectrum, bacterial, viral, and fungal, through mechanisms that are distinct, non-overlapping, and synergistic.

The specific clinical advantages of the combined solution include:

Broader viral coverage.  Silver’s antiviral mechanism targets the viral envelope. Copper’s antiviral mechanism targets the viral genome. Together they provide a two-stage antiviral action — surface disruption combined with genetic destruction,reducing the possibility that partially disrupted viral particles could remain viable.

Enhanced antifungal activity.  Both silver and copper have documented antifungal properties through distinct mechanisms. Silver disrupts fungal enzyme systems; copper disrupts fungal cell wall biosynthesis. Their combination provides broader antifungal coverage and reduced likelihood of fungal adaptation.

Sustained and immediate action simultaneously.  Copper acts within minutes; silver continues to act over hours and days as ions are released into surrounding tissue fluid. The combination provides both immediate antimicrobial action and sustained protection.

Resistance profile.  Neither silver nor copper antimicrobial mechanisms are subject to conventional antibiotic resistance pathways. A combined solution exploiting both mechanisms simultaneously presents an essentially insurmountable resistance challenge to pathogens.

Practical Guidelines for Preparation and Application

The following guidelines reflect current clinical practice and should be observed by practitioners using the combined solution:

Solution type.  Use colloidal or ionic solutions rather than salt-based formulations. Salt-based solutions contain chloride ions that will precipitate both silver chloride and copper chloride, dramatically reducing the effective ionic concentration of both metals. Colloidal or true ionic solutions maintain stable ion availability in aqueous suspension.

Storage.  Store in glass or food-grade non-metallic plastic containers. Metal containers will react with the ionic solution and alter its composition. Protect from direct light, which can degrade silver ions over time.

pH.  Both silver and copper ions are most antimicrobially active at slightly acidic to neutral pH — approximately pH 5.5 to 7.0, corresponding to the natural pH range of healthy skin. Simple pH test strips, available inexpensively from pharmacy or laboratory suppliers, can verify the solution before application.

Application site.  Apply to intact or healing skin over the site of infection. Do not apply to open wounds, open blisters, or broken skin, this is a contraindication. For surface infections such as tinea, shingles, cellulitis, or superficial fungal infections, direct topical application to the affected area is the primary method.

Application method.  Apply using a clean cotton pad or gauze, gently saturating the affected skin surface. Allow to dry naturally. Reapply two to three times daily, or as clinical response indicates. The skin surface should be clean and dry before application.

Combination with BeT electrode protocols.  For infections with a systemic or deep tissue component, combine topical solution application with the relevant BeT electrode protocol targeting the affected organ’s meridian system. The electrode protocol supports systemic ion transport and addresses the constitutional dimension of the infection through bioelectric regulation of the immune response. The topical solution addresses the surface and superficial tissue infection directly.

PRECAUTION: Metal allergy to copper or silver is a contraindication for all metal-based BeT applications, including topical solution use. Screen patients for metal allergy before initiating treatment. Discontinue immediately if contact dermatitis or allergic reaction develops.

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The BeT Hypothesis: Meridian-Mediated Systemic Ion Delivery

The current conventional understanding is that silver ionic conduction is limited — silver ions can penetrate cell membranes and act within the immediate vicinity of their application, but cannot traverse significant distances through body tissues. On this understanding, silver and copper are useful for topical and surface treatment only.

Bio-electrode Therapy proposes a different possibility, grounded in the meridian ion transport system of Traditional Chinese Medicine and supported by direct clinical observation over forty-two years of practice.

The meridians of the Chinese medicine system are pathways of preferential electrical conductance through the body’s fascial network — routes of low electrical impedance along which ions and electrons travel more efficiently than through surrounding tissues. When copper and silver electrodes are placed on acupuncture points along these meridian pathways, the galvanic microcurrent generated between the electrodes drives ions through this preferential conduction system, transporting them through the electrolyte medium of the body to the organ systems and tissues associated with the chosen meridian circuit.

If this hypothesis is correct and the clinical evidence from tooth infection treatment and other deep tissue infection applications suggests that it is the implications are considerable. Metal ion antimicrobial therapy would no longer be limited to surface and superficial tissue infections. Through strategic electrode placement on the relevant meridian circuit, antimicrobial ions could be directed to organ-level infections that conventional topical treatment cannot reach.

This would represent a genuine clinical breakthrough: a non-pharmaceutical, non-antibiotic infection treatment strategy capable of reaching deep tissue and systemic infections, using metals effective against multiply antibiotic-resistant organisms, that cannot be patented, and that can be administered by practitioners without specialised clinical equipment.

The research required to formally establish this mechanism, measuring ion concentrations in target tissues following BeT electrode treatment using fluorescent-tagged metal nanoparticles, or tracking infection resolution in deep tissue sites correlated with meridian-targeted electrode placement — has not yet been conducted. That research is needed, and this chapter is in part a call for it. The clinical observations that support this hypothesis are real and consistent. The mechanism that explains them deserves formal investigation.

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A Note on the Suppression of Metal-Based Antimicrobials

It is worth observing, in the context of this book’s broader argument, why copper and silver have not been more actively developed and deployed as infection treatments in the antibiotic era, despite their well-documented efficacy and the growing crisis of antibiotic resistance.

The answer is the same answer that explains why Bio-electrode Therapy has not been adopted into mainstream clinical practice, why acupuncture remains a contracted rather than integrated therapy in addiction services, and why non-pharmaceutical approaches to opioid withdrawal are suppressed rather than developed. Neither silver nor copper in their elemental or ionic forms can be patented. They belong to everyone. They cannot generate the kind of recurring pharmaceutical revenue that drives research investment, clinical trial funding, guideline development, and medical education. There is no financial sponsor for unpatentable treatments, regardless of their efficacy.

This does not make them less effective. It makes them more important, particularly at a moment when the patented solutions are failing, the resistant organisms are multiplying, and the pharmaceutical industry has no adequate answer.

The therapeutic principles of Bio-electrode Therapy, combining the bioelectric regulation of the meridian system with the antimicrobial properties of copper and silver metals — may provide part of the answer to a healthcare crisis that the conventional pharmaceutical model created and cannot resolve. The evidence base, clinical observations, and historical record presented in this chapter are offered in that spirit: freely, for the benefit of those who are suffering, and for the practitioners and researchers who are willing to look beyond the boundaries of the patentable.

Stay curious...

Les Moncrieff