Mary Mallon
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- For the comicbook character Typhoid Mary, see Typhoid Mary (comics)
Image:Mallon-Mary 01.jpg Mary Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938), also known as Typhoid Mary, was an Irish immigrant who was the first known healthy carrier of typhoid in the United States. She contracted a mild case of typhoid fever but was never cured, so she spread the disease to others. Having no particular job skills she obtained employment in private homes around New York City, eventually obtaining the relatively well-paid position of household cook.
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Birth and emigration
She was born in County Tyrone, Ireland in 1869 and emigrated to the United States by herself in 1883.
Cook
Mary worked as a cook in the New York City area between 1900 and 1907. During this part of her working career she infected 22 people with the disease, one of whom died. Mary was a cook in a house in Mamaroneck, New York, for less than two weeks in the year 1900 when the residents came down with typhoid. She moved to Manhattan in 1901, and members of that family developed fevers and diarrhoea, and the laundress died. She then went to work for a lawyer, until seven of the eight household members developed typhoid. Mary spent months helping to care for the people she made sick, but her care further spread the disease through the household. In 1904, she took a position on Long Island. Within two weeks, four of ten family members were hospitalized with typhoid. She changed employment again, and three more households were infected. Frequently, the disease was transmitted by a dessert of iced peaches, her favorite recipe.
Typhoid
George Soper, a sanitary engineer hired by the landlord of a house where Mary had worked for typhoid fever victims, after careful investigation identified Mary as the carrier. He approached her with the news that she was spreading typhoid. She violently rejected his request for urine and stool samples, and Soper left, later publishing his findings in the June 15, 1907 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Soper brought a doctor with him on his next contact with Mallon, but was again turned away.
Mallon's denials that she was a carrier were based in part on the diagnosis of a reputable chemist who Mallon had test herself; he found she was not harboring the germs. While she was merely in temporary remission, the diagnosis contributed to Mallon's refusal to accept the allegations. Moreover, when Soper first told her she was a carrier, the concept that a person could spread disease and remain healthy was not well known. Finally, George Soper was generally tactless in his dealings with her. (During one encounter, he told her he would write a book about her -- and give her all the royalties. She got up, walked to the bathroom, and locked the door. Soper got up and left.)
Quarantine
Image:Mary Mallon in hospital.jpg The New York City Health Department sent Dr. Josephine Baker to talk to Mallon, but "by that time she was convinced that the law was wantonly persecuting her, when she had done nothing wrong." [1]
A few days later Baker arrived at her place of work with several police officers to take her into custody. Baker had to sit on Mary to keep her from leaving. The New York City health inspector investigated and found her to be a carrier, isolating her for three years at a hospital located on North Brother Island, and then releasing her on the condition she did not work with food. However in 1915 she returned to cooking and infected 25 people while working as a cook at New York's Sloan Hospital; two of those she infected died. Public health authorities then again seized her and confined Mary Mallon in quarantine for life. She became something of a celebrity, and was interviewed by journalists, who were forbidden to accept as much as a glass of water from her. Later in life, she was allowed to work in the island's laboratory as a technician.
Death
Mary's eventual death (in 1938) was due to pneumonia, not typhoid. However, an autopsy found evidence of live typhoid bacteria in her gallbladder. Her body was incinerated in Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx.
Legacy
Part of the problems Mary had resulted from her vehement denial of the situation. She maintained she was healthy and had never had typhoid fever. Historians say it also stemmed from the prejudice that existed against working-class Irish immigrants at the time. Today, a Typhoid Mary is a term for a carrier of a dangerous disease who is a danger to the public because they refuse to take appropriate precautions or cooperate with the authorities to minimize the risk.
Popular Culture
- In Chris Elliot's book, The Shroud of the Thwacker, Elliot is sent back in time, suspected to be the Thwacker (serial killer). He is given cover by Mary Mallon because she is attracted to him. When the police come to arrest her (Elliot believes it is himself the police are coming for) she "forcefully pulled me (Elliot) to her and planted a wet slobbering kiss on my lips. I tried to pull away but she was too strong for me...She took a breath and couged in my face and then dove into my mouth again..." Elliot later remembers the importance of Mary Mallon and feels symptoms of typhoid coming on. He quickly kills the infection with some acetaminophen he left in his coat pocket while traveling back in time.
- Typhoid Mary is the name of a Marvel comic book villain, though her powers and origin have nothing to with the historical figure.
Further reading
- Typhoid Mary, Captive to the Public's Health, Judith Walzer Leavitt, Beacon Press, Boston, 1996, hardcover, 331 pages, ISBN 0-8070-2102-4
- Quarantine: The Story of Typhoid Mary, Mercedes Graf, Vantage Press, New York, 1998, paperback, 133 pages, ISBN 0-5331-2512X
- Fighting for Life, Sara Josephine Baker, Macmillan Press, New York 1939
- The Ballad of Typhoid Mary, J.F. Federspiel [translated by Joel Agee], Ballantine Press, New York, 1985