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OBSERVATIONS ON THE SO-CALLED 
‘CANARY FEVER’ 
BY 
C. E. WALKER 
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OK CANCER RESEARCH AND HONORARY LECTURER ON- 
CYTOLOGY TO THE LIVERPOOL SCHOOL OK TROPICAL MEDICINE 
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL 
(Received for publication October \th , 1907) 
Hitherto the evidence regarding the disease commonly known as 
Canary Fever,’ has been of a most conflicting character. Very 
frequently the disorder is of a comparatively trifling nature, and such 
cases do not usually come to the knowledge of a medical man. 
Private enquiry points to the probability that from 60 to 80 per cent, 
of the visitors to the Island suffer from one or more attacks during 
the time that they are in the islands. Dr. Taylor, who has practised 
among the English visitors in Las Palmas for many years, estimates 
that only about 5 per cent, of the cases that occur come under the 
observation of a medical man. 
The disease is apparently more prevalent during the winter months 
than during the summer, but this is probably due to the fact 
that larger quantities of food are consumed during the former period 
owing to the larger number of visitors, and that as flies are then more 
numerous, there is, as we shall see later, a much greater chance of the 
food becoming infected. 
Clinically the disease is characterised by the suddenness of its 
onset, and by its generally attacking a number of individuals in the 
same hotel at the same time. Frequently it commences with 
vomiting, and as a rule, even when vomiting does not actually occur, 
there is a considerable feeling of nausea which lasts for from a few 
hours to two or three days. A few hours after the vomiting or nausea, 
sometimes synchronously with it, griping pains in the abdomen o a 
violent character commence. This is the most marked and constant 
symptom, and causes very considerable suffering. The patient now 
developes a more or less acute attack of diarrhoea. In the more acute 
