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Minamata DiseaseLate Effects of an Unusual Neurological Disorder Caused by Contaminated Fish
DOUGLAS McALPINE, M.D., F.R.C.P.;
SHUKURO ARAKI, M.D.
AMA Arch Neurol. 1959;1(5):522-530.
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Minamata is a small industrial town situated near the southwest coast of Kyushu, the most southerly of the three main islands of Japan. A number of villages are located on or near a neighboring bay. Into this bay flows the effluent from a large fertilizer factory. Between 1953 and 1956 a mysterious nervous disease affected the fishing community living near the bay. The outbreak was investigated by a number of departments of Kumamoto University, and the results were published in 1957, in Japanese in two supplements of the Journal of the Kumamoto Medical Society. The following brief account is taken from a recent article, summarizing the Japanese accounts of the outbreak (McAlpine and Araki1).
Between November, 1953, and December, 1956, a total of 56 persons living on or near Minamata Bay were affected by a neurological illness characterized by an acute or a subacute onset of numbness and cerebellar signs.
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
Author Affiliations
Kumamoto, Kyushu, Japan
From the Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kumamoto University.
The Middlesex Hospital and Medical School, London W. 1.
Present Address (Dr. McAlpine): Institute of Clinical Research.
Footnotes
Accepted for publication May 21, 1959.
In receipt of grants from the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness, Bethesda 14, Md.
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