ID#: 18725
Caption:
This 1970 photograph was created during an investigation that took place in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in Otero County, dealing with a number of cases involving human and porcine, methylmercury poisoning. Here you see, a hog yard, in which a sow was leading her piglets on a foraging expedition in search of stray, possibly contaminated grain. It was determined during the study that a hog, fed grains treated with methylmercury dicyanamide (a fungicide), was later butchered, and its meat was fed to the hog owner’s family members, who in turn began to exhibit symptoms indicative of mercury poisoning, which included “ataxia, decreased vision, and depression of consciousness, which progressed to coma over a period of 3-weeks”. Subsequent studies on urine specimens from the affected family members, the pork, and the grain seed, all showed results indicative of abnormally high levels of mercury, confirming the diagnosis of organic mercury poisoning.
High Resolution: Click here for hi-resolution image (18.34 MB)
Content Provider(s): CDC/ Dr. William Likowsky
Creation Date: 1970
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Copyright Restrictions: None - This image is in the public domain and thus free of any copyright restrictions.