History Of Gold

When Rome began to flourish, the city attracted talented Gold artisans who created gold jewelry of wide variety. The use of gold in Rome later expanded into household items and furniture in the homes of the higher classes. By the third century AD, the citizens of Rome wore necklaces that contained coins with the image of the emperor. As Christianity spread through the European continent, Europeans ceased burying their dead with their jewelry. As a result, few gold items survive from the Middle Ages, except those of royalty and from church hordes.

In the Americas, the skill of Pre-Columbian cultures in the use of Gold was highly advanced long before the arrival of the Spanish. Indian goldsmiths had mastered most of the techniques known by their European contemporaries when the Spanish arrived. They were adept at filigree, granulation, pressing and hammering, inlay and lost-wax methods. The Spanish conquerors melted down most of the gold that they took from the peoples of this region and most of the remaining examples have come from modern excavations of grave sites. The greatest deposits of gold from these times were in the Andes and in Columbia.

The rise of a gold standard was meant to stabilize the global economy, dictating that a nation must limit its issued currency to the amount of gold it held in reserve. Great Brittain was the first to adopt the gold standard in 1821, followed, in the 1870s, by the rest of Europe followed. The system remained in effect until the end of the first world war, after which the US was the only country still honoring the Gold Standard. After the war, other countries were allowed to keep reserves of major currencies instead of gold. The arrival of the great depression marked the end of the U.S. export of gold in the 1930s. By mid 20th century, the US dollar had replaced gold in international trade

Gold ranks among the most high-tech of metals, performing vital functions in many areas of everyday life. Gold's unique properties make it useful in medical applications, pollution control, air bags, mobile telephones, laptop computers, space travel, and many other things we consider indispensable to our modern lives. Approximately 12% of demand for gold comes from industry.

Because it is "biocompatible", gold plays an important role in medical implants. For example, gold-coated "stents" are inserted into clogged arteries to clear the flow of blood. Also, because gold is opaque to x-rays, surgeons are able to place a stent with the utmost precision, which helps ensure optimal effectiveness. Other medical implants that contain gold are pace makers and insulin pumps. Gold is used in these devices because of its high level of reliability in micro electronics.

Gold possesses a high degree of resistance to bacterial colonization, and because of this it is the material of choice for implants that are at risk of infection, such as the inner ear. Gold has a long tradition of use in this application and is considered a very valuable metal in microsurgery of the ear.

Gold is being used increasingly in pharmaceutical applications. Gold is ideal for delivering biologically active materials directly into the target tissues in the human body, without damaging the tissues themselves, or altering the biological activity of the material being delivered. Gold helps doctors to deliver precise doses of powerful drugs to the parts of the body where they are required. This is important in the treatment of a range of diseases, including cancer and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

On the molecular level, gold has applications through its organic and chemical compounds used in medical science: for instance, anti-cancer drugs. Or in what doctors have started to describe as a "pharmacy on a chip" - a tiny covering of gold is used to encase micro doses of drugs on an electronic chip that is implanted in the body. When the chip is electronically activated to dissolve the tiny casing of gold, an appropriate dose of drug is released.

In a similar way, gold is the preferred material for a branch of medical research the scientists call "biolistics", because it is a marriage of biology and ballistics. Strands of DNA are blended with microscopic gold powder and injected into the skin in search of targeted cells, so that the researchers can observe the reaction. In this application, three of gold's attributes are crucial: first, its non-reactiveness. Second, the fact that it is opaque means it can be precisely located, just as with the stents. And finally, the fact that gold is dense - it has a high ratio of mass or weight to volume - means the compound can achieve the high speed required to penetrate the targeted cell.