Volume 17 , Issue 11

Typhoid Mary Mallon

Mary Mallon, better known as Typhoid Mary, was the first person in the United States identified as an symptomatic carrier of the pathogen associated with typhoid fever. Mary was born September 23, 1869, New York, and died November 11, 1938, North and South Brother Islands, New York.

They say Mary Mallon seemed like a healthy woman when health inspector knocked on her door in 1907, but she was the cause of several typhoid outbreaks. Since Mary was the first "healthy carrier" of typhoid fever in the Untied States, she did not understand how someone not sick could spread disease, so she tried to fight back.

It was after a trial and a short run from health officials, Typhoid Mary was recaptured and forced to live in relative seclusion upon North Brother Island off New York.

It was the summer of 1906, New York banker Charles Henry Warren wanted to take his family on vacation. They rented a summer home from George Thompson nd his wife in Oyster Bay, Long Island. The Warrens also hired Mary Mallon to be their cook.

It was 27 August 1906, one of the warren's daughters became ill with typhoid fever. Soon after, Mrs. Warren and two maids became ill, followed by the gardener and another Warren daughter. In total, six of the eleven people in the house came down with typhoid.

The common way typhoid spread was through water or food sources. The owners of the home feared they would not be able to rent the property again without first discovering the source od the outbreak. The Thompsons first hired a investigators to find the cause, but they were unsuccessful.

It was after those investigators' that the Thompsons hired George Soper, a civil engineer with experience in typhoid fever outbreaks. It Soper who believed the recently hired cook, Mary Mallon, was the cause. Mallon had left the Warren's approximately three weeks after the outbreak. Super began to research her employment history for more clues.

Mary Mallon was reportedly born in 23 September 1869 in Cookstown, Ireland. According to what she told friends, Mallon emigrated to America around the age of 15. Like most Irish immigrant women, Mary found a job as a domestic servant. Finding she had a talent for cooking, Mary became a cook, which paid better wages than many other domestic service positions.

Super trace Mary's employment history back to 1900. He found that typhoid outbreaks and followed May from job to job. From 1900 to 1907, Soper found that Mary had worked at seven jobs in which 22 people had become ill, including one young girl who died, with typhoid fever shortly after Mary had come to work for them.

Dr. Soper was satisfied that this was much more than a coincidence, yet he needed stool and blood samples from Mary Mallon to scientifically prove she was the carrier.

Mary Mallon was found by Dr. Soper in March 1907 working as a cook in the home of Walter Bowen and his family. To get samples form Mary, Soper approached Mary at her place of work.

Mary Mallon reacted badly and walked Dr. Soper out of her work place, as she pointed a knife at him.

Super did not give up, though. He tracked Mary to her home. and brought an assistant, Dr. Bert Raymond Hobbler, for support. Mary again became enraged, making clear they were unwelcome and shouted expletives at them as they made a hurried departure.

It was going to take more persuasiveness than Dr. Soper had, so he handed his research and hypothesis over to Hermann Biggs at the New York City Health department. Biggs agreed with Soper's hypothesis, and sent Dr. S. Josephine Baker to talk to Mallon. Mary was extremely suspicious of these health officials, and refused to listen to Baker. Baker returned with the aid of five police officers and an ambulance.

Mary Mallon was on the lookout and peered out, a long kitchen fork in her hand like a rapier. As she lunged at Baker with the fork, Baker stepped back, recoiled on the policeman and so confused matters that, by the time they got through the door, Mary had disappeared, completely vanished.

Baker and the officers search the house, finding footprints spotted leading from the house to a chair placed next to a fence. They spend five hours searching both properties, until they found a tiny scrap of blue calico caught in the door of the areaway closet under the high outside stairway leading to the front door.

Mary came out of the closet fighting and swearing, both of which she could do with appalling efficiency and vigor. Baker made another effort to talk to Mary sensibly and asked her again to let her have the specimens, but it was of no use. By the time Mary was convinced that the law was wantonly persecuting her, when she had one nothing wrong. She knew she had never had typhoid fever. She was maniacal in her integrity. There was nothing she could do but take her them. The policemen lifted her into the ambulance and literally sat on her all the way to the hospital caged like an angry lion.

Mary Mallon was taken to the Willard Parker Hospital in New York, where samples were taken and examined. Typhoid bacilli was found in her stool. The health department then transferred Mary to an isolated cottage that was a part of the Riverside Hospital, on North Brother Island, in the eAst River near the Bronx.

Mary Mallon believed she was being unfairly persecuted. She was healthy, and could not understand how she could have spread disease and caused a death when she, herself seemed healthy. Mary was isolated for two years on North Brother Island. Mallon sued the health department. Mary believed she was innocent human being. She also believed she committed no crime and she was treated like an outcast, criminal.

Mary did not understand a lot about typhoid fever and no one tried to explain it to her. Not all people and a strong bout of typhoid fever; some people have such a weak case that they only experience flu like symptoms. Thus, Mary could have had typhoid fever but never known it.

Though commonly known at that time that typhoid could be spread by water or food products, people who were infected by the typhoid bacillus could also pass the disease from their infected stool onto food via unwashed hands. It was for this reason, infected persons who were cooks or food handlers and the most likelihood of spreading the disease.

Though the judge ruled in favor of the health officials and Mary was remanded to the custody of the Board of Health of the City New York, in February 1910, a new health commissioner decided that Mallon could go free as long as she agreed never to work as a cook again. Mary was anxious to regain her freedom, and accepted the conditions on 19 February 1910, changing her occupation from cook, giving assurance by affidavit that she would upon her release take such hygienic precautions as would protect those with whom she came in contact. Mary was let free in 1910.

Mary Mallon tried to be a laundress as well as working at other jobs, but Mary eventually went back to working as a cook.

It was January, 1915, five years after Mallon's release, the Sloane Maternity hospital in Manhattan suffered a typhoid fever outbreak with 25 people becoming ill and two of them died. Evidence pointed to a recently hired cook, Mrs. Brown, alias Mary Mallon, using a pseudonym.

This time around Typhoid Mary knew of her healthy carrier status, but didn't believe. She was suspected of willingly and knowingly caused pain and eat to her victims, using an alias. Mary was again sent to North Brother Island to live in the same isolated cottage she had inhabited during her last confinement. Mary remained imprisoned on the island for 23 more years.

It was known that she helped around the hospital gaining the title "nurse" in 1922 and then "Hospital helper" sometime later. In 1925, Mary began to help in the hospital's lab.

It was in December 1932, Mary Mallon suffered a large stroke that left he paralyzed. She was transferred from her cottage to a bed in the children's ward of the hospital on the island, where she stayed until her death 6 years later, November 11, 1938.

Though Mary Mallon was the first carrier found, she was not the only healthy carrier of typhoid during that time. An estimated 3,000 to 4,500 new cases of typhoid fever were reported in New York City alone and it was estimated that about three percent of those who had typhoid fever became carriers, creating 90-135 new carriers a year.

Why is Mary Mallon infamously remembered as "Typhoid Mary?" Why was she the only healthy carrier isolated for life? Some believe that there was prejudice against Mallon not only for being Irish and a woman, but also for being a domestic servant, not having a family, not being considered a bread earner, having a temper, and not believing in her carrier status. During her lifetime, Mary Mallon experienced extreme punishment for something in which she had no control and had gone down in history as the evasive and malicious "Typhoid Mary."

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