Silver bullet
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The metaphor of the silver bullet applies to any straightforward solution perceived to have extreme effectiveness. The phrase typically appears with an expectation that some new technology or practice will easily cure a major prevailing problem. The term originates from folklore. Traditionally, the silver bullet is the only weapon that can kill a witch, or monster or a person living a charmed life.
The best known magical creature which is vulnerable to a silver bullet is a werewolf, though this is not authentic folklore, and actually dates back to the 1941 movie The Wolf Man. As a more modern popular culture example, the Lone Ranger also used silver bullets. Functionally, however, silver is both lighter and harder than lead and makes inferior bullets, at least for modern firearms.
In different traditions silver is thought to be the metal associated with the moon and with the human soul. It is likely that these associations have contributed to the legend of the silver bullet.
Some have seen such apparently miraculous drugs as salvarsan and penicillin as "silver bullets". Silver is once again being recognized for its ability to kill germs, bacteria and viruses more effectively and more safely than the drugs which have traded on silver's ancient reputation.
Experts often use the term more cynically to dampen unreasonable expectations. Doctors, for example, will often readily characterise the latest fad diet as "no silver bullet."
It has been said that Jan Potocki, author of The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, shot himself with a silver bullet because he believed, perhaps under the influence of syphilitic madness, that he was becoming a werewolf
See also
External links
- Real Silver Bullets
- More on the confusion between silver bullet and magic bullet herefr:La balle en argent