In Buenos Aires a company of nine actors supporting Florencio Parravicini, famed Argentine comedian, were playing a comedy. Included in the cast was a parrot who took the part of a sailor's pet. One by one the company sickened. An actor and an actress died. Alarmed physicians were at a loss for a diagnosis. The symtoms were simple: nausea, constipation, a fever preceded by a chill. Then the parrot too lost appetite, moulted, became diarrhetic, died. The doctors examined him, pronounced his death due to psittachosis—parrot-disease. They warned parrot-owners that this infection would...
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