This is American hysteria's aftershock, where I share with you a story that didn't make it into the main episode.

I'm your host, Chelsea Weber Smith. And today we're talking about parrot fever.

Thank you. Fever. In December of 1929, an American family, like most others, had fallen on hard times doled out by the Great Depression as jobs were scarce and so was food and other resources.

Simon Martin still wanted to make sure his wife felt special on Christmas.

A pet parrot seemed to be bright, both of color and fun, and he merrily purchased one for her from his

local pet store. That winter morning, warm by the fire, his wife Lillian went to open her gift.

As she pulled the paper back on the large cage, she could see the parrot there, but something

was wrong. The parrot was dead, a stiff pile of feathers

at the bottom of the cage. I imagine it felt something like this clip from Dumb and Dumber

that I feel I have to play.

I've had it with this dump. We got no food. We got no jobs. Our pets heads are falling off.

I'm really sorry about that. Anyway, it wasn't long before Lillian, their daughter, and son-in-law all started coming down with some kind of sickness, showing symptoms commonly associated with pneumonia and even typhoid.

In the meantime, Simon, who happened to be the secretary of the

Annapolis Chamber of Congress, took it upon himself to investigate the issue of this very dead

parrot. He returned to the pet store to tell them what had happened, and the shop owner offered him

a replacement parrot. Simon said, no thank you. A doctor was called on January 6th to

examine the Martin family, and when he learned of the dead parrot, he suddenly recalled an article

he had recently read in a newspaper about an outbreak of parrot fever, or its technical name,

cytokosis, in Europe and South America. The doctor sent a telegram to Washington, D.C., requesting that medicine be sent to Maryland to cure the afflicted, and within two days the government had mobilized.

Scientists and doctors were sent from Washington's hygienic laboratory, including Charles Armstrong, who was selected to handle this investigation to determine how widespread the outbreak had become and how best to contain it.

Armstrong started with the pet shop where Simon Martin had bought his parrot.

Determining how many parrots the shop had sold that holiday season, Armstrong began the process of tracking down all 36 birds and all the people

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