He increased knowledge of the way influenza viruses cause infection, and he carried out or was associated with research on myxomatosis, Murray Valley encephalitis, toxic staphylococcal infection, polio, psittacosis, herpes simplex, poxviruses, and Q fever.
In the early 1930s the importation and sale of parrots in the United States was drastically curtailed when psittacosis, or parrot fever, was traced to the birds.
Some germs the causative agents of anthrax and tetanus, of Q fever, brucellosis, and psittacosis, for example can live for long periods dried in dust.
Notable exceptions are ornithosis psittacosis, or parrot fever, a serious and sometimes fatal disease resembling viral pneumonia.
The genus is composed of three species: C. psittaci, which causes psittacosis; Chlamydia trachomatis, various strains of which cause chlamydia, trachoma, lymphogranuloma venereum, and conjunctivitis; and C. pneumoniae, which causes respiratory-tract infections.
Psittacosis, also called ornithosis or parrot fever, infectious disease of worldwide distribution caused by a bacterial parasite (Chlamydia psittaci) and transmitted to humans from various birds.
In humans psittacosis may cause high fever and pneumonia.
Tetracyclines are used against a variety of infectious diseases, including cholera, rickettsial infections, trachoma (a chronic infection of the eye), psittacosis (a disease transmitted by certain birds), brucellosis, and tularemia.
Psittacosis usually causes only mild symptoms of illness in birds, but in humans it can be fatal if untreated.
Other bacterial pneumonias include Legionnaire disease, caused by Legionella pneumophilia; pneumonia secondary to other illnesses caused by Staphylococcus aureus and Hemophilus influenzae; and psittacosis, an atypical infectious form.
Another chlamydial organism, Chlamydophila psittaci, produces psittacosis, a disease that results from exposure to the discharges of infected birds.
