Minamata Disease

In May 1956, four patients from the city of Minamata on the west coast of the southern Japanese island of Kyushu were admitted to hospital with the same severe and baffling symptoms. They suffered from very high fever, convulsions, psychosis, loss of consciousness, coma, and finally death.Soon afterwards, 13 other patients from fishing villages near Minamata suffered the same symptoms and also died.

Doctors were puzzled by the strange symptoms and terribly alarmed. It was finally determined that the cause was mercury poisoning. Mercury was in the waste product dumped into Minamata Bay on a massive scale by a chemical plant. The mercury contaminated fish living in Minamata Bay. People ate the fish, were themselves contaminated, and became ill. Local bird life as well as domesticate animals also perished. In all, 900 people died and 2,265 people were certified as having directly suffered from mercury poisoning, now known as Minamata disease.