Medicine: Ornithosis

The disease-scare headline of the week was that pigeons carry a virus which can cause virus pneumonia. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, Army Lieuts. David C. Levinson and John Gibbs and Philadelphia's Dr. Joseph T. Beardwood Jr. reported six pneumonia cases definitely traced to pigeons—two had handled the birds and four lived in neighborhoods where they would easily breathe particles from the birds' excreta in dust.

This report confirms a belief doctors have had ever since the discovery three years ago that pigeons (40% of them in some areas) and many other fowl (sometimes even ordinary hens) carry a...

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