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
Contagious disease Contagious disease A contagious disease is a subset category of transmissible diseases, which are transmitted to other persons, either by physical contact with the person suffering the disease, or by casual contact with their secretions or objects touched by them or airborne route among other routes. Non-contagious infections, by contrast, usually require a special mode of transmission between persons or hosts. These include need for intermediate vector species (mosquitoes that carry malaria) or by non-casual transfer of bodily fluid (such as transfusions, needle sharing or sexual contact). The boundary between contagious and non-contagious infectious diseases is not perfectly drawn, as