“HAFF SICKNESS”

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 54, 27 November 1926, Page 24

“HAFF SICKNESS”

CURIOUS MALADY CONQUERED

Discovery of the cause of the mysterious “Haff sickness” which was proving ruinous to a large part of the German Baltic fisheries industry, together with the elimination of the disease virtually bv government fiat, is announced at Berlin by officials. It is one of the very few cases on record where an edict had power to end an

epidemic, or at least what looked like one. A little over two years ago, fishermen in the stretch of shallow water along the southern end of the Baltic between Koenigsberg and Danzig, known locally as “the Haff ” began to develop a very painful and in some cases fatal disease. Its symptoms were extreme pain and a kind of paralysis of some of the leg muscles, together with certain phsiological disturbances It always attacked its victims while they were out in their boats, and generally in the early morning, while the mists still hung over the water. A few days on shore usually resulted in complete recovery, but a return to fishing might bring on repetitions of the maladv. Tn a short time the Haff fisheries were badly demoralised. The theory that it might be an epidemic of a germ disease quicklv went bv the board. The “Haff sickness ' had none of the earmarks of an ordinary epidemic. Likewise the theory that

it might be caused by the eating <rf spoiled fish or eels had to be abandoned, because many of the victims did not eat fish, and fish-eaters on shore never suffered from the disease. The investigators finally came to the conclusion that there must be something in the water that rose into the morning mists and caused the disease by poisoning the air. Research along

this line soon showed that they were right. The disease was really a kind of arsenic poisoning, caused by the discharge > into the water of great quantities of . factory wastes from cities on shore. These wastes contained arsenic compounds, which were altered into gaseous form bv small organisms living in the water, and thus released into the air to plague the luckless fishermen. The arsenic was present in the factory materials only as an impurity, so that it was no hardship to the industries when the government ordered them to change to the use of other materials with a lower percentage of arsenic. Within a few months the “Haff sickness” had virtually vanished.