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 virus similar to that of psittacosis, the much dreaded parrot disease. Both viruses produce a virus pneumonia, but the parrot virus is much more dangerous, usually killing about 18% of its victims. Both behave so much alike that medical men now refer to all bird-borne virus pneumonias as ornithosis, and call both viruses "members of the psittacosis group."

Doctors think that pigeons may explain many cases of hitherto unexplained virus pneumonia. But so far no one has recommended shooting all the pigeons in City Hall Park--possibly because if the pigeon ornithosis were really serious everyone would have been dead long ago.

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