We’ve now all experienced a pandemic and know how crazy the world can become. On today’s episode we’ll be discussing Mary Mallon. Her refusal to admit she was ill in the early 1900’s, would result in the spread of Typhoid Fever across New York. Some 3,000 New Yorkers would develop typhoid fever and scientists believe it was because of the Irish immigrant named Mary.
Typhoid Fever
Typhoid fever, now rare in developed countries, was deadly in about 10% of cases in the early 1900’s. The symptoms of typhoid fever are high fever, stomach pain, headache, and either constipation or diarrhea. There are a few other symptoms like weight loss and stomach swelling. If treated with antibiotics it will go away in a few days. However antibiotics were not found to treat typhoid fever until 1948. There is also a vaccine that was created in 1911, a few years after the New York outbreak of typhoid fever. Typhoid fever was viewed, at the time, to only affect those in the “crowded slum”. Wealthy people were too good to contract typhoid fever, or so they thought.
If left untreated, typhoid fever can lead to deliriousness and your body becomes so exhausted you can’t move which is known as the typhoid state. It's at this point that complications arise with the major ones being gastrointestinal hemorrhage and typhoid intestinal perforations (TIP) which are often fatal even with surgical means. Typhoid fever can still be found today in underdeveloped countries. It is spread through contaminated fecal matter, urine and being in close contact with someone who has typhoid fever. Often times its found in contaminated drinking water due to poor water systems or through food that has been in direct contact with a person who has typhoid fever. Which is the case when it comes to Mary Mallon.
Mary Mallon, Typhoid Mary
Mary was born in Ireland in 1869 in one of Ireland’s poorest counties, and moved to the United States around 1884. In the summer of 1906, Mary was hired as a cook for a wealthy New York family. Charles Warren hired her because she had already worked for several wealthy families in the area. But things turned sour when 6 of his 11 family members were diagnosed with typhoid fever. Fearing he would lose out on renting out his summer home, Warren hired a sanitary engineer, by the name of George Soper, to get to the bottom of it. At first Soper believed it was caused by some kind of shellfish that Mary had cooked that week. When results came back negative, he began checking the water sources and other food. Everywhere he looked came up negative for causing the contamination.
Soper got a little smarter and decided to look into Mary Mallon a little more. As it turned out, 7 of the families Mary had worked for reported contracting typhoid fever. This resulted in 22 people becoming infected and the death of one young girl. Typhoid fever was more deadly in children. Due to these findings, Mary Mallon was apprehended in 1907 as the cause of transmitting typhoid fever.
Gina’s Macabre Moment
Okay so here is where the story gets a little more interesting…Mary was apprehended and the New York Health Department forced her into solitary confinement on a 16 acre area with nothing more than a fox terrier as her companion. Mary was furious because she had never had any symptoms or been sick. She got results from a private lab that stated she was negative for typhoid fever and sued the NY Health Dept so she could be released. The NY Supreme Court denied her. But in 1910, (president William Howard Taft), 3 years later, the new head of the department agreed to let Mary Mallon go free if she promised to never work as a cook again. She promised and then kind of dropped off the map.
Fast Forward 5 years and in 1915 (president Woodrow Wilson), another outbreak of typhoid fever happened in a maternity hospital. 25 people were diagnosed with typhoid fever and 2 died. Health officials traced it back to the hospital’s cook named Mary Brown who was none other than….drum roll…Mary Mallon working under an alias. The staff didn’t know she was really Mary Mallon, but had nicknamed her Typhoid Mary. Mary was then taken and put into solitary confinement again. There she would spend the last 23 years of her life alone even though other asymptomatic people walked the streets of New York everyday. However no one really trusted Mary to stay out of the kitchen. She passed away in 1938 of pneumonia (which is another side effect of typhoid fever.) The craziest part is that the only reason Mary was able to pass it to so many people was because of poor hygiene. If she would have spent more time washing her hands, she would have been fine.
And there you have the hi-story of Typhoid Mary. If you have any ideas for future blogs, comments, or questions message us at hi.stories673@gmail.com. Also follow us on Twitter @hi_stories673. Thanks for reading!
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