Silver is not like lead or mercury, it's more like gold or copper. It's perfectly fine to handle a lump of it, or to use silverware or jewelry (some people do get rashes, but that's actually a sensitivity to the nickel the silver is alloyed with).
About silver... it's actually has anti-bacterial properties, hence "pure", something impure like Vampires and Werewolves are said to be weak against them because of such properties. (At some point, Vampirism/Lycanthropy was regarded as an illness and silver cures that).