Recently, a series of cases of a central nervous system disease of unknown cause with extrapyramidal tract abnormalities as the most prominent feature occurred, mainly in fishermen's communities, on the periphery of Minamata City. Because the symptoms of the disease were unique and severe, and its prognosis was extremely poor, the disease caught immediate attention. In response to the request from the local Minamata Strange Disease Countermeasures Committee to investigate this disease, we visited this area many times since September 1956 and conducted a detailed epidemiological study, including face-toface interviews of 40 households with patients and 68 adjacent households without patients as control households. The results of the study are described below.
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