In the thriller movie "Resident Evil", a terrifying and deadly "T-virus" is fictionalized.
The virus forcibly expropriates the body of the infected person, and the humans infected with it gradually turn into hideous-looking, convulsive walking dead, and only the death of the host can escape control.
In reality, although the "T-virus" does not exist, there are some conditions with similar symptoms. For example, in the fifties of the last century, Minamata disease originated in Minamata Bay, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan.
It is reported that during the raging Minamata disease, more than 50,000 cats in Japan committed suicide by jumping into the sea due to unbearable illness, and cat corpses can be seen everywhere in Minamata Bay. Later, Minamata disease was transmitted to humans, and the symptoms suffered by humans were very similar to those of "suicide cats"!
So, how did such a horrific "Minamata disease" come about?
And what kind of suffering does it bring so much that thousands of unfortunate beings can only seek liberation through death?
- 1. From a quiet village to a "purgatory on earth"
Turn the clock back to 1952.
At that time, Japan had not yet emerged from the shadow of World War II. Years of war have dragged down all aspects of this island nation, and in the face of the current situation of the country in ruins, slow recovery and recuperation have gradually become the mainstream of Japan's social development.
There is a small town called Minamata Town in the southern part of Kyushu Island, and there is an ordinary bay next to the town, but no one expected that a huge disaster was quietly brewing on the seemingly calm sea...
One day, when the residents of the town passed the bay, they were horrified to find a large number of fish on the surface of the sea with their white bellies turned up, mixed with some carcasses of seabirds, floating aimlessly on the water.
Before the residents could delve into this strange phenomenon, the behavior of the stray cats in the town made this incident even more bizarre:
A large number of cats began to involuntarily twitch, foam at the mouth, unsteady gait, and some even ran to the side of the bay like crazy, jumped into the water, and never floated up again...
Yes, the cats committed suicide by jumping into the sea.
This puzzled the townspeople, who tried to rescue them, but to no avail, could only watch the cats squeeze into the carcasses of fish and birds, and watch the lives disappear in the water.
Why would a cat that is afraid of water by nature commit suicide by jumping into the sea desperately?
What diseases do they have?
The townspeople could not know the reason, so they could only name this strange disease "cat chorea" according to their understanding.
In Japanese folklore, animal images are often the prototype of yokai in many stories, and this mass death of animals has made them uneasy and worried that it is a harbinger of some kind of disaster.
In just a few days, thousands of cats in Minamata have jumped into the sea, whether they were stray cats or domestic cats, almost invariably falling prey to filling the bay's water.
Later, someone counted the number of cats that committed suicide in Japan during this period, and the result exceeded 50,000.
The townspeople hurriedly invited veterinarians to check the situation, but after the veterinarian dissected some of the animal carcasses, no obvious signs of organ lesions were found, only the cat's internal nerves were partially damaged.
As for why the strange phenomenon of "cats jumping into the sea to commit suicide" occurred, it is impossible to explain.
A few years later, in 1956, the "feline disease", which had taken the lives of countless cats, officially spread to humans... Since then, there has been an uproar.
In April 1956, Shizuko Tanaka, a five-year-old Japanese girl living in Minamata Town, suddenly became convulsive and slurred, and her symptoms were very similar to those of cats who had suffered from "feline chorea" a few years earlier.
The terrified family rushed him to a nearby hospital, but for a while, doctors who had never seen such a condition could not pinpoint the cause, so they could not do anything about it.
Despite the hospital's best efforts, Shizuko's symptoms did not lessen in the slightest, but became more and more serious, so that she lost her eyes and suffered from convulsions all over her body, and eventually died.
The bad news came one after another.
The family has not yet recovered from the grief of Shizuko's death, and her sister, who is three years younger than Shizuko, was also admitted to the hospital with the same symptoms, and also experienced the painful process of deterioration in the same way, and finally passed away suddenly!
The death of the innocent sister Hana is a sigh, but no one expected that the death of Tanaka's sisters was just the prelude to this disaster! On the surface of Minamata Bay, more and more people, especially children, are experiencing similar symptoms.
This unknown disease is extremely harmful to the human body. The light ones lose slurred speech and mobility; In severe cases, the whole body convulses, convulsing like an electric shock, accompanied by howls in pain until death.
In the face of a sudden deadly disease, the local medical institutions were obviously caught off guard, they had never fought such a murderous disease, and could only die like a live horse doctor, trying to treat the disease with traditional infectious disease prevention and control methods.
The results can be imagined.
The spread of the disease has not been stopped, but there have been signs of expanding its spread. The horrific disease in Minamata quickly spread throughout society, triggering mass panic among the Japanese masses.
Man's greatest fear is the fear of facing the unknown, a disease that has never been heard of before, like the embodiment of death with a scythe, leaving nothing but terrified convulsions and despair waiting for death.
- Second, who is the culprit of this strange disease?
In the face of an endless stream of "confirmed cases", the hospital affiliated to the Minamata Nitrogen Fertilizer Factory made a specific report to the higher medical department, and called this disease "Minamata disease".
As a result, the local government hastily established the Minamata Disease Response Committee, together with several official medical organizations, and commissioned medical experts from Kumamoto University to establish the Minamata Disease Research Group to help investigate the disease.
Hosokawa, director of the Minamata Nitrogen Fertilizer Company's affiliated hospital, attached great importance to this disease event, and he had witnessed the tragic appearance of patients living worse than dying under the torment of the disease, so he wanted to clarify the cause as soon as possible so that he could provide more effective rescue.
Commissioned by the Minamata Disease Investigation Team at Kumamoto University, Hosokawa led a research group to conduct on-site research. He traveled to the Minamata Bay area, which was the most affected this time, hoping to get clues that would help him study Minamata disease.
Looking at the scattered fish and shrimp carcasses on the sea, Hosokawa's mind quickly connected with many factors that caused diseases.
Minamata Town had a large-scale animal disease a few years ago, and from the current point of view, those fish, shrimp and even cats are suffering from Minamata disease, which is currently making the Japanese people miserable.
First there are fish and shrimp in the water, then cats on the shore that feed on fish and shrimp, and finally humans who are invaded by mutated viruses. Hosokawa deduced the general context of the spread of the disease, and finally located the source of the transmission - the seawater.
So, what causes anomalies in seawater? Hosokawa led the team to extract seawater from Minamata Bay as a sample, conducted experimental investigations, and found mercury in it that far exceeded the normal content of seawater.
Hosokawa was deeply disturbed by the test results.
Experiments have shown that the mercury content of seawater around Minamata is as high as 1.6 milligrams per kilogram, which is nearly ten times the normal mercury content of 0.1-0.3 milligrams per kilogram of seawater.
After further investigation and evidence, the research team found that the cause of Minamata disease was methylmercury compound poisoning!
Mercury, or mercury, can cause great harm to the human body, especially the human brain nerves. Ingesting large amounts of mercury can seriously damage nerves in the brain and even cause death.
This also explains why obvious traces of brain damage have been seen in previous deaths in both animals and humans.
Such a staggering mercury content is obviously not naturally formed by seawater, and someone must be responsible for it!
Through their visits, Hosokawa's team learned from local residents that there was a chemical plant near the village. At this point, Hosokawa finally found the culprit behind this incident - the suffocating nitrogen fertilizer company under the name of Japan's Chisho Co., Ltd., located near Minamata Town.
In the process of producing ethanol, nitrogen fertilizer companies use a large number of low-cost mercury as catalysts in order to seek economic benefits; And to save costs, the wastewater is not treated, and it is openly discharged into the ocean.
The factory is located on the coast of the fire on the island of Kyushu, and the industrial wastewater flowing into the sea of fire cannot be diluted out of the ocean, so it accumulates and settles over a long period of time, and a large amount of mercury seeps into the seawater and is eaten by the creatures in the seawater.
In this way, the vicious circle is passed through the food chain layer by layer, and finally turns into the "sickle of death" that robs countless innocent people.
After understanding the specific situation, Hosokawa quickly wrote a report that truthfully described the discharge of large amounts of untreated mercury-containing wastewater from nitrogen fertilizer plants, and reported it to the higher government along with relevant information. He believes that after this rush to investigate, the government can quickly respond to curb the current situation of Minamata disease.
However, things backfired, and Hosokawa, who had expected the Japanese government to do something, never waited for an official response.
When he submitted his report again, the same endless silence was in response.
Seeing the new and tormented patients in the hospital every day, Hosokawa was indignant, and he did not understand why the Japanese government remained silent and ignored this incident, or whether the previous commission of multiple investigations into the cause was just a means to calm the people.
When Hosokawa wanted to continue reporting, he was stopped by a friend who worked at a government office. From the mouth of the other party, Hosokawa learned the truth about the silence above...
After World War II, Japan's people's livelihood was deteriorating and everything was in ruins, and recovery and economic development were the primary goals. In addition, due to the lack of environmental protection laws and regulations and related supervision systems, a large number of Japanese companies choose to sacrifice the environment for development, resulting in a series of man-made environmental tragedies. The nitrogen fertilizer factory that caused the Minamata disease incident is a company owned by Japan Corporation.
Japan Co., Ltd., one of Japan's largest monopoly capitals after World War II, has been involved in most economic fields related to Japan's national economy and people's livelihood, and its economic benefits once became a pillar of Japan's post-war economic recovery.
If these real experimental data are responded to, it will inevitably hurt the company's operating efficiency, thereby affecting economic income, so Hosokawa kept silent about the data submitted by Hosokawa's team.
After learning the truth, Hosokawa deeply felt the deep oppression under the Iron Curtain, but he still insisted on continuing to report, even sacrificing the lives of several cats to demonstrate the harm of mercury!
However, he was again oppressed, his experimental data was confiscated, and he was ordered to stop the experiment.
Hosokawa, who was helpless, had to exit sadly.
In such a suffocating silence, wastewater from nitrogen fertilizer factories continues to be discharged as usual, residents of Minamata still eat aquatic products salvaged from mercury water, and Minamata patients in hospitals wait silently for the moment when their lives will end.
Not only that, people suffering from Minamata disease, even if they can survive the disaster, will pass the disease on to the next generation in the process of reproduction, as if they were carved by the Lich with a most vicious curse that will never turn over.
- Third, reverence for nature, historical reflection on the Minamata disease incident
In 1968, Minamata disease broke out again on a large scale.
As the Japanese government continued to do nothing, thousands of lives were reduced to ashes and scattered into unknown fire.
The patients suffering from water pollution could not bear it and angrily signed a lawsuit against the chemical plant that released mercury wastewater, demanding that it stop discharging the wastewater and compensate the victims.
However, the story of the brave dragon slaying seems to appear only in fairy tales, and the indignant joint appeal did not bring them justice in time. This case, which was originally without suspense, dragged on for more than ten years in the official prevarication.
It was not until 1973 that the Minamata District Court ruled against the initiators of the incident and provided some financial compensation to the victims. "Pestering" the epidemic in Minamata Town for decades, finally got a belated trial at this moment.
However, can the so-called financial compensation really compensate for the traumatized hearts of the people who have experienced the Minamata disease?
How many Minamata disease patients endure the pain of drilling their hearts, crying in despair in the trembling of the whole body convulsions, until they are overwhelmed and resolutely throw themselves into the sea. Just like the cat who committed suicide by throwing himself into the sea on the side of Minamata Bay many years ago, lonely and desperate!
The Japan Review Agency commented on the incident as follows:
"The Minamata disease in Kumamoto, in terms of the breadth of its damage and the tragic circumstances of its damage, is the man-made disaster in the history of the world, second only to the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and is the most terrifying public nuisance disease in the history of mankind."
According to official statistics in the 80s, Minamata City has more than 2,000 confirmed patients and more than 400 deaths. It is not difficult to imagine that the actual number of confirmed cases and deaths must far exceed this so-called official statistics.
After the "Minamata Town Tragedy" was made public, the people's condemnation of the Japanese government poured out like snowflakes, and many sharp editorials pointed out the Japanese government's weakness and disregard for the people.
The actions of the Japanese Government in this incident have undoubtedly sounded a wake-up call for all countries in the world.
It was not until the new century, in an environment of public opinion demanding an apology, and half a century after Minamata disease was first discovered, that the Japanese government finally expressed its deep condolences to the victims of Minamata disease in public.
- brief summary
Looking back at Japan's history, it is not difficult to see that "environmental problems" seem to be a persistent disease that haunts the country.
From the man-made Minamata tragedy to the Fukushima nuclear wastewater dump, Japan has always inertialy followed the thinking of prioritizing economic interests and lacked reverence for nature when seeking solutions to environmental problems.
Imagine how an employee working for a wastewater discharge company would feel when he saw his relatives and friends who make a living fishing and were seriously ill. Today, the Japanese masses, who suffer from Minamata disease due to genetic problems and other problems, are still rushing for a piece of justice.
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