Rub John Harvard’s Foot Without Fear?

If I say the words Periodic Table of Elements what is your first reaction? Sweaty hands, dry mouth, panic attack, horror flashbacks to high school or college classes of hours of boring lectures?  I will admit right now I hated chemistry in high school and college. I almost flunked out of college because of my inability to remember if certain elements bonded covalently or how may p or s orbitals they had in their atoms.  And truly the only thing I remember from high school chemistry was our chemistry teacher accidentally setting the Periodic Table of Elements chart on fire the first day.   

However, I am beginning to come around to the fun side of the Periodic Table of Elements since reading The Disappearing Spoon. I thought that the only fun you could have with the Periodic Table of Elements could be listening to the renowned mathematician and professor Tom Lehrer sing his song “The Elements.” (If you haven’t heard it click the link.)  I applaud the author, Sam Kean, for his ability to collect and use so many FUN stories and information about the Periodic Table of Elements. Do you know why  Gandhi hated iodine, how solving a math equation wrong and then sending your wrong answer to Einstein can win you a Nobel Prize, why  a noted astronomer in 1564 who lost his nose in a sword duel had it replaced with one made out of silver, and what’s the deal with copper piping?  

Sam Kean’s section on the oligodynamic properties of copper and silver got me to thinking about the time I once visited the famous statueof three lies while showing a friend around Boston. We stood on the Harvard campus watching students and others needing luck, rub, lick, and kiss John Harvard’s left foot.  Yuck, I though why would you touch that after watching someone lick the statue? Millions of germs spreading from person to person……..or maybe not?  There are certain metals in the Periodic Table of Elements; silver, copper, aluminum, zinc, and tin which have been shown to kill certain bacteria, algae, and fungi within a few hours.  As these organisms move across the surface of these metals they pick up metal atoms which once they get into the cells disrupts their metabolism and in some cases messes up their cell’s DNA causing the cells to die. Scientists call this the oligodynamic effect. Scientists still are not 100% sure how the oligodynamic effect works but people have been using and experimenting with different metals since 1000 BC.  People in 1000 BC left river water in silver pots sitting in the sun then filtered the water to remove sand and bits of plant matter and found the water was drinkable.  Silver coins were dropped into milk jugs to keep the milk from spoiling as people moved westward across America.  Since 1976 copper tubes have been put in air conditioners to kill harmful bacteria growing in the warm moist environment.  One recent research paper shows copper can kill drug resistant salmonella in water in 4-8 hours, while tin is less effective at killing nasty organisms which make us humans deathly ill. 

Back to John Harvard.  His statue is made up of bronze which is a mixture of copper and tin, both have oligodynamic properties.  A group of researchers showed bronze plates (94% copper 6% tin) to be slower at killing harmful organisms when submerged in contaminated water then pure copper plates.  So, I think this callsl for an experiment! All I need to do is fly to Boston swab John Harvard’s left foot and grow the swab on a culture medium plate (something which looks a little like Jello which scientists grow bacteria on) to figure out what types of bacteria are on his foot.  While the bacteria are growing keep everyone from touching the foot and then at 4 hour intervals swab his foot and grow those swabs to see if the oligodynamic properties of bronze help to kill all the nasty stuff I think maybe on John’s foot.  If the oligodynamic effect works maybe his foot would self-sterilized by morning if no one touched it at night. Who knows? Anyone near Harvard who has access to a bacteria lab and who can figure out how to control for all the experimental variables I have not thought of please run this experiment and then tell me what your results are. I wait with baited breath!