Haff disease
As Haffkrankheit was epidemic occurrence of by water pollution caused fish poisoning referred to in the summer and autumn months of the years 1924-1939. The name was given to the fresh lagoon in East Prussia on the northern banks of which around 1000 people fell ill, which led to some death.
Occur
Koenigsberger Haff disease
Wilhelm Stoeltzner from the University Children's Hospital in Königsberg was one of the first doctors to be confronted with the " Königsberg Haff disease " in the summer of 1924 . However, there were also reports of diseases in Narmeln (1924 and 1932) and Danzig (1924). In 1932 Peyse ( risen as Komsomolski in Swetly) was the main focus of the epidemic, where, despite the prolonged use of an emergency doctor, a fishing assistant died. The number of cases decreased annually.
In addition to humans, cats and seabirds also became ill after consuming fish. Stoeltzner set up a laboratory in the basement of his clinic, fed cats and dogs with fish and - separately - with the water from the Fresh Lagoon and came to the conclusion that the cellulose in the paper mills on the banks of the lagoon was the cause of the disease be. In doing so, he contributed to research into the disease, although his theses turned out to be incorrect.
Several reports were made in the Association for Scientific Medicine . Poisoning from inhaled arsenic-containing gases from industrial wastewater was assumed to be the cause , but Georg Lockemann was able to prove from 1925 to 1927 that the disease was not due to arsenic. Even Gerhard Geiseler examined the Haffkrankheit. The outbreak of the diseases could ultimately be traced back to the consumption of eels from the northern part of the Fresh Lagoon.
The poison probably originated at the bottom of the lagoon due to sewage discharges from the city of Königsberg and the influence of summer heat and lack of oxygen. The poisons entered the human food chain via larvae, mussels and then fish.
Illnesses also occurred in Leningrad Oblast from 1934 to 1936 . In Russia , Lake Juksovsky gave its name to Juksovskaya disease (Юксовская болезнь), although it is also known as Gaffskaja (гаффская болезнь - derived from the German word Haff).
Occurrence since 1940
The disease was also observed in Sweden in the 1940s . Recently (1997–2014) there were ten cases in the USA, the cause was the consumption of the loud mouthed buffalo fish , which was both fresh fish and frozen products from the supermarket. In the summer of 2010, several dozen Chinese people from Nanjing fell ill after eating the red marsh crayfish . Haff disease ("Haff 病") was also designated as the official cause.
In Russia, the disease occurred in 1947-1948 and 1984 on Lake Sartlan (озеро Сартлан) and repeatedly on Lake Kotokel (озере Котокель) in the immediate vicinity of Lake Baikal . There it has repeatedly led to fish mortality and one death since 2008.
Disease picture and classification
The toxins absorbed with the fish meal lead to a clinical picture that corresponds to rhabdomyolysis . In medicine, this means the dissolution of striated muscle fibers , such as skeletal muscles , heart muscles and diaphragm . The released myoglobin can damage the kidneys and lead to acute kidney failure .
One symptom of the disease is paralytic myoglobinuria, a special form of myoglobinuria .
In the ninth version of the ICD (1976) Haff disease was classified as arsenic poisoning, in the tenth edition from 2013 it is linked to mercury poisoning .
literature
- H. Assmann; with the collaboration of H. Bielenstein, H. Habs, B. zu Jeddeloh: Observations and investigations in the Haff disease 1932. German Medical Wochenschrift , 59 (1933), pp. 122–126. Summary online
- B. to Jeddeloh: Haff disease. In: Results in internal medicine, 57 (1939), pp. 138-182.
- Georg Lockemann: About the occurrence of arsenic in the Fresh Lagoon. In: Angewandte Chemie, Vol. 39, No. 47, pp. 1446-1449 of November 25, 1926.
- Georg Lockemann: Third report on research into Haff disease. 1930.
- Eberhard Neumann-Redlin von Meding : Königsberger Haff disease. In: Königsberger Bürgerbrief , No. 76 (2010), pp. 57–58.
- Jürgen W. Schmidt : The "Haff disease" in East Prussia in the autumn of 1932. In: Jahrbuch Preußenland , 47/2 (2009), pp. 57-60.
Web links
- v.Bülow: Haff disease In: Otto Dornblüth : Clinical Dictionary 13./14. Edition, 1927
