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Estimated Accumulation Curve for Methlymercury in the Body


Kitamura 1971

 Minamata disease, like other types of poisoning by other substances, could occur when the quantity of the causal agent methylmercury compound accumulated within the body reaches the threshold value for onset of those symptoms. However, because methylmercury compound taken into the body is discharged outside of the substance is taken into the body continuously, a steady state in which intake equals excretion will be attained at the cumulative limit of methylmercury compound that corresponds to the amount of daily intake.
Kitamura (1971) has presented an accumulation curve for methylmercury compound, assuming the biological half-time to be about 70 days. He calculated that Slightly affected victims must have eaten more than 500 g/ day of poisonous fish containing 10 Mg/g methylmercury. The toxic dose line above which symptoms develop (i. e., 100 mg of accumulated mercury) was taken as one- tenth the lethal dose, as deduced from analytical values for methylmercury in the viscera of deceased victims.
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