World Parrot News

Ordinarily, a good parrot is one whose vocabulary is extensive but not obscene; a bad parrot, one who curses or bites. Last week, all parrots were in bad odor. They were suspected of being responsible for psittacosis or "parrot fever" (TIME, Jan. 20), a somewhat mysterious and as yet rare malady which had suddenly become internationally conspicuous.

Discovered in 1892, by a veterinarian, Edmond Isadore Etienne, parrot fever began to make its appearance in newspapers last October when nine members of a theatrical troupe in Buenos Aires fell ill and their pet parrot died of the ailment with which he had infected them. Not because they had infected many persons but because a psittacosis scare had set in, were all parrots under suspicion last week.

In Mexico City, following the first case of psittacosis, an order was issued condemning every parrot in the city to be killed and another order prohibiting the importation of parrots into Mexico.

In Switzerland, four patrons of a hairdresser who kept a parrot in his shop died. In Geneva, the League of Nations' International Labor Office and the Bureau of Industrial Hygiene instructed Dr. Luigi Carozzi to make an investigation of typhus des perruches.

In Munich, an embargo was placed upon the importation of parrots into Bavaria.

In Berlin, the Official Gazette prohibited the importation of parrots into Prussia.

In Balboa, Rear Admiral Edward Hale Campbell ordered all parrots belonging to sailors in his squadron to be quarantined. Seventy-four sailors thereupon set their parrots free.

In the U. S., 47 cases of psittacosis were reported, eight psittacosis deaths. In Washington, Surgeon General Hugh S. Gumming ordered a nation-wide investigation of psittacosis, to be headed by Dr. Charles Armstrong. In Los Angeles, all pet stores and recently purchased birds were quarantined. In Chicago, one Ben Plonski tried to get rid of an annoying parrot by telling health officers that the bird was "a psittacosis menace to the community." In Manhattan, City Health Commissioner Shirley W. Wynne declared an embargo on parrot shipments from South America, advised parrot owners to wash their hands thoroughly after touching their birds.

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