PARROT DISEASE

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 March 1930, Page 10

PARROT DISEASE

DOCTORS IN CONFERENCE.

LONDON, February 4. , Reference is made in this week’s issue of the British Medical Journal, to the present epidemic of psittacosis, commonly known as parrot disease. At the last meeting of the section of medicine of the Royal Society of Medicine the belief was expressed that many cases of the disease are scattered about the country and that many aie overlooked. . . . D” A P Thomson (Birmingham), 1 who spoke' at the meeting, said* his interest in the subject dated from July 1928. He had seen 17 cases, five of which had proved fatal, following contact with sick parrots. In a house in Cheshire a parrot had died. The man of the house, who had allowed the bird to take food out of his lips, became ill at the time of the parrot’s death. His wife and son also became seriously ill. Another case was that of a lady in Worcestershire, who developed a temperature of 103 deg., headache, mainly occipital, some diarrhoea, and occasional vomiting. There were no abnormal physical signs apart from sharp cracking rales in the upper lobe of the left lung. This lady did not keep a parort, but had looked after a friend’s parort that was sick. As the temperature fell, the general condition became worse. The physical signs in the lung and abdominal distention did not clear up until the temperature had been normal for 10 days. In another case a Jewish girl, according to Jewish custom, had been given a pair of lovebirds on her betrothal, and one of the birds was very ill. The girl developed intense headache temperature 104 deg., and cervical rigidity. In the lung there was absolute silence. Exploration yielded no fluid, and when the needle was pressed into the lung one had the feeling that it was going into something solid. The temperature remained at 104 deg. to 105 dog. for eight days. Reviewing the clinical aspect of these cases, Dr Thomson said that it was fairly accurate to state of the severer ca.s(|s that they resembled typhoid septicaemia in retaining a relatively slow pulse, despite a high continuous fever. Even before the development of the usual pulmonary signs, however, certain features distinguished them from true typhoid; the onset was usually more rapid. Although the clinical qo.iu'se of most of the cases formed a fairly characteristic feature, it was clear that the symptoms and sign? might be but slight and equivocal, even when the disease proved fatal.' '

CURIOUS LUNG SYMPTOMS. Dr Robert Hutchison said that the infection seemed to be direct from the bird to the human being, though there was one case in which the patient had not been in close contact with the parrot, but had nursed her sister, who had first taken the infection. The incuba.ti.on period was, roughly, ten days. The cases had the appearance of typhoid, or para-typhoid, but there i were curious lung symptoms, with actual consolidation in one case, though the London Hospital cases had not shown the dense consolidation of which Dr Thomson had spoken. He believed that many cases were scattered about. As the result of a letter in the British Medical Journal of January 18, he had received information of four or six cases which had been diagnosed retrospectively, and from these it had been possible to trace others. A great many cases were probably overlooked. As to the origin of these cases, he understood that there was a bad outbreak in Argentine last July, and probably it was. from Argentina that these parrotshad' been exported to this country and other parts of Europe, Germany, with Teutonic thoroughness, had stopped the importation of parorts altogether. Dr Macnamara described a case in which three persons who find had to dp with a parrot fel Isick, undoubtedly with psittocosis. The remarkable thing was that two of them had had no contact with the bird until after it was dead, when they had to do with the disposal of its body. Dr Levy Simpson quoted from the Epidemiological record of the League of Nations particulars about the extent of the epidemic in Argentina during the summer of 1929. Altogether, several hundreds of human cases, all connected with sick parrots, had been reported in that country. It was the largest epidemic of psittacosis hitherto known.