[A case of psittacosis treated with rifampicin (author's transl)].

A 45-year-old male who had looked over pet-birds at a bird shop 11 days before, developed a high fever with chills. Without any response to cephalexin, he was admitted to the hospital, with the chief complaints of high fever and sever headache on the 8th day of illness. The chest X-ray films taken then revealed a fun-shaped ground glass-like shadow extending over S10 of the right lung. After the oral administration of 450 mg rifampicin on the 9th day of illness, he became a febrile within one day and was cured with the same daily doses for the following 10 days. Chlamydia was isolated from the peritoneal exudate of the mice inoculated with throat mucus of the patient taken prior to the administration of rifampicin. Complement fixation reaction for psittacosis was positive in a titer of 1 : 16 on the 11th day of illness and rose to 1 : 64 in a week.