Question

The Minamata disease in Japan was caused through the pollution of water by

(a) cyanide

(b) methyl isocyanate

(c) lead

(d) mercury.

Answer 1

(d) mercury.

Mercury is changed to water soluble dim ethyl mercury which undergoes biomagnification. consuming poisoned animals causes deformity called minamata disorder (first stated in 1952 because of eating of fish captured from Hg-infected minimata Bay of Japan) that's characterised through diarrhoea, hemolysis, impairment of diverse senses, numbness of lips, tounge, limbs, deafness, blurring of imaginative and prescient, mental dearrangement, meningitis and death.