Synthesis of Methyl-mercury Compounds by Extracts of a Methanogenic Bacterium

THERE have been incidences of extensive alkyl-mercury poisoning in Japan and Sweden. In Japan a large number of people belonging to the fishing population around Minamata Bay were seriously affected by what is now called Minamata disease. This incident was traced back to pollution of the bay with the mercury containing effluent of a large chemical plant. When methyl thiomethyl-mercury was isolated from shellfish in the area of the bay it was suggested that mercury could be alkylated by “plankton and other marine life” 2 . It was discovered later that the spent catalyst of an acetaldehyde reactor, which caused the pollution, contained approximately 1 per cent methyl mercury; and the biological methylation of mercury was thought to be insignificant.