Psittacosis singer Philip Selway. Lena Rose Pepperdine died in 1930 of parrot fever. She was the first wife of George Pepperdine, the founder of Pepperdine University. Psittacosis Psittacosis—also known as parrot fever, and ornithosis—is a zoonotic infectious disease caused by a bacterium called "Chlamydophila psittaci" and contracted from infected parrots, such as macaws, cockatiels, and budgerigars, and pigeons, sparrows, ducks, hens, gulls and many other species of birds. The incidence of infection in canaries and finches is believed to be lower than in psittacine birds. In certain contexts, the word is used when the disease is carried by any species of
Zymotic disease Zymotic disease Zymotic disease was a 19th-century medical term for acute infectious diseases, especially "chief fevers and contagious diseases (e.g. typhus and typhoid fevers, smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, erysipelas, cholera, whooping-cough, diphtheria, &c.)". Zyme or microzyme was the name of the organism presumed to be the cause of the disease. As originally employed by Dr W. Farr, of the British Registrar-General's department, the term included the diseases which were "epidemic, endemic and contagious," and were regarded as owing their origin to the presence of a morbific principle in the system, acting in a manner analogous to, although not identical with,