Nine patients with acute pericarditis or myocarditis, or both, were found to have serological evidence of concurrent infection by a psittacosis agent. Three patients had conclusive epidemiological and clinical evidence of complicating pulmonary psittacosis and demonstrated that psittacosis agent does produce inflammatory heart disease in this geographic area. Six patients had imperfect corroborative evidence of psittacosis and their clinical manifestations were atypical. Indeed, half of these patients were initially believed to have some form of idiopathic myocardial disease. Studies of these patients suggest that psittacotic infection m ay be causal in certain forms of heart disease commonly designated primary myocardial disease.

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