The bird keeled over dead on Christmas Day, a bad omen, and Mrs. Martin started feeling ill about five days later. Psittacosis is the medical name for the ailment she contracted; it passes from birds (especially those of the order Psittaciformes, meaning parrots and their kin) to humans, causing fever, aches, chills, pneumonia, and sometimes death. “Parrot fever” was the label under which it raised alarm in the United States during early 1930, when people exposed to those unhealthy imported birds started getting sick, especially in Maryland.
