I hope not - why would anyone wish to use heavy metal based soaps as medicine!

They tend to be industrial tool for toughening up fabrics, leather (water-proofing) etc.

I suspect that in Agra, there may still be a thriving tannery business - they may be able to provide you with a good deal more information.

My guess is that you are asking about the use of silver as an antimicrobial agent. Here is a link to an article that albeit is older but was highlighted in Best of Science and nature writing. http://archive.onearth.org/article/our-silver-coated-future 

Hope this is helpful. 

HI

Thank you very much for your input

Susan Verghese

Soap has always been prepared from animal (and more recently vegetable) oils by reacting with alkali metal salts, namely sodium and potassium salts.  They are not of any great medicinal use orally because they act as purgatives and as potential toxifiers of co-administered substances that wouldn't otherwise be absorbed.  Applied to the skin, they act as penetration enhancers because they disprupt skin integrity.  Soaps prepared from animal and vegetable oils using higher metals produce insoluble precipitates: the scum that forms in the bath when a sodium or potassium soap is used in hard water areas is composed of calcium and magnesium salts of fatty acids.  I would imagine that silver salts of fatty acids are similarly insoluble.  So, these "soaps" produced from higher metals wouldn't even function as soaps!

DEAR RICHARDJ SCHMIDT

TRUE,BUT CAN THEY BE USED AS A  CATALYST IN ANY MEDICINAL PREPARATION?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "catalyst". Calcium and magnesium stearates ( = "scum" formed from sodium/potassium soaps used in hard water areas) are used as formulation aids in tableting.  See, for example, http://www.drugs.com/inactive/calcium-stearate-19.html and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11274815

Mineral ions in tap water react with fatty acids in soap, leading to the formation of insoluble precipitate (metallic soap) on skin during washing. We hypothesised that metallic soap might negatively alter skin conditions. Application of metallic soap onto the skin of NC/Tnd mice with allergic dermatitis further induced inflammation with elevation of plasma immunoglobulin E and proinflammatory cytokine expression. Pruritus and dryness were ameliorated when the back of mice was washed with soap in Ca2+- and Mg2+-free ultra-pure soft water (UPSW). Washing in UPSW, but not tap water, also protected the skin of healthy volunteers from the soap deposition. Furthermore, 4 weeks of showering with UPSW reduced dryness and pruritus of human subjects with dry skin. Washing with UPSW may be therapeutically beneficial in patients with skin troubles. Key words: atopic dermatitis; animal model; metallic soap; skin barrier; pruritus.

can i conclude by saying its not advisable cause it affects negatively.