tailieunhanh - Coastal Pollution: Effects on Living Resources and Humans - Chapter 2

Các "bệnh Dancing Cat" của Minamata Đôi khi trong đầu những năm 1950, hành vi kỳ lạ Bắt đầu để trở thành Nhận thấy trong phi nhân văn Một số cư dân của thị trấn đánh cá nhỏ gần thành phố công nghiệp của Minamata, trên đảo Kyushu ở miền nam Nhật Bản. Chim đã giảm từ cây, vàng Bay thất thường, đôi khi đâm vào ngôi nhà của họ trong chuyến bay. Mèo đi với một dáng đi lệch đặc biệt, hoặc chạy vòng tròn chặt chẽ, hoàn toàn mất phương hướng Cuối cùng Trở thành và chết. Người. | 2 Minamata Disease The Dancing Cat Disease of Minamata Sometime in the early 1950s weird behavior began to be noticed in some of the nonhuman inhabitants of small fishing towns near the industrial city of Minamata on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan. Birds tumbled from trees or flew erratically occasionally bumping into houses in their flight. Cats walked with a peculiar lopsided gait or ran in tight circles eventually becoming totally disoriented and dying. Locals called the condition dancing cat disease. Not long after these strange happenings were first observed abnormalities began to occur in humans as well abnormalities of increasingly frightening proportions. Fishermen and members of their families began to experience neurological disabilities tremors numbness of face and limbs paralysis visual disturbances especially constricted vision mental disorientation and speech disorders. Advanced cases lost control of body functions became bedridden and died. Mortality was about 40 of affected individuals. The full horror of the disease was still ahead in the birth of blind dreadfully deformed and mentally impaired children Smith and Smith 1975 . The affliction was first called the strange disease and later Minamata Disease. By the end of1956 52 victims had been identified in the small fishing communities surrounding Minamata Bay. The search for a cause was painfully slow and was impeded by govern-ment industry foot-dragging and denials by both parties that a problem existed. Mercury contamination of Minamata Bay and its fish and shellfish populations by the effluents of a chemical production company was suspected as the cause and was reported as such in the scientific literature in 1959. It was not until 1968 however that the Japanese government stated officially that organic mercury contamination of fish and shellfish was the cause of the disease in human consumers and that the chemical company a part of the Chisso Corporation was the source. Later .