Typhoid Mary Was Quarantined For 23 Years For Being Born With Typhoid
The cook who infected hundreds with a disease she was born with. For it, she would have her life destroyed.
Mary Mallon is a peculiar figure. An obscure figure in the depths of history, she is a subject of peculiarity- she is the cook who was the unfortunate killer of three, the infector of hundreds, who ruined people’s lives, who ruined her own. Just because of one thing: she had typhoid from the day she was born. For it she would pay injustices none of us will ever face, a terrible and tragic end.
From the day she emerged from her mother’s womb in 1869 in Cookstown, County Tyrone, she was already infected with the sinister disease of typhoid. Her mother had been infected with the disease during the pregnancy and clearly, when little Mary was born, no one knew she had it. So you must be asking,
What is typhoid?
Typhoid is a fever that is caused by salmonella bacteria. It’s pretty horrid: it spreads in your digestive system and soon vomiting, rose-colored spots, sometimes diarrhea, weakness, constant headaches, confusion settles in. Back in the 1800s, this would often end up with death.
Back to Mary- she immigrated to the USA by 15 and rapidly became a cook for the affluent families of New York after a shot at being a maid. This is where the problem settles in; if she had remained a nurse, things would’ve probably turned out fine because typhoid is spread through food and water.
The 1900s: the beginning of the end for Mary
By 1907, she had consecutively worked for eight families, and every time she went to a new one, a strange disease would emerge in all of them. Wait for it… typhoid. It was a disaster; seven of the families became severely ill- in 1900 she had worked in Mamaroneck (an obscure New York suburb) and within two weeks the family had it. She moved to Manhattan: there another family developed diarrhea and fevers for the same bloody reason. She left a breadcrumb of the disease everywhere she went- she infected a laundress, a famous lawyer, a banker, and loads of maids.
In 1906, Mallon and her deadly disease caught their first victim: she was working for the wealthy New Yorker Walter Bowen, who owned an apartment on Park Avenue. There everyone instantly became ill- the maid on January 23 and soon Charles Warren’s only daughter got typhoid and died. But by now, the countless investigators finally were on her heels. It soon became clear she was the infector of all of these people and George Soper, an investigator was the first to find out. You see, Soper had been hired after Mallon had caused another outbreak of typhoid in Oyster Bay a few months earlier, which was there very uncommon and he was working out why these well-to-do families were so ill. But she escaped…
Every time an outbreak would occur, she would rapidly escape without giving any forwarding address, she would go from place to place spreading this tyrannical disease. She knew if she handed herself over, she would end up in quarantine or would permanently be banned from her job, her source of life.
Soper finally met Mallon in the kitchen of the Bowens and accused her of spreading the disease. She rapidly became infuriated and threatened him with a carving fork. He asked for samples of her urine for testing but she refused. Then Soper found Mary’s boyfriend and met her there again with the help of a DR called Hobbler. She refused again however the damage had already been done. In June, Soper published his findings and that was the
Next March, she was sentenced to quarantine in the North Brother Island, a small island near the Bronx. Some suggested removing her gallbladder however she believed she didn’t have it. This was worsened by the fact Mallon wanted to continue working as a cook.
Soper, the man who uncovered it all demanded that she be forcibly quarantined against her own free will. She was quarantined for over 2 years and 11 months and her plea in front of the New York supreme court was rejected.
The cooking itself wasn’t even the problem but what specialty she cooked. Her specialty was peach ice cream, a terrible idea for a typhoid carrier as warm food would’ve killed the bacteria. She was so mistreated, Eugene H.Porter, the New York commissioner of health decided to release her in exchange for not cooking ever again.
In addition, she received so much media attention, by now she was called ‘Typhoid Mary’. Media attention allowed her plight to be heard and this severely shortened her quarantine. 1910 dawned and she was out again. But not for long…
1910s: Her downfall and isolation
Well, actually five years. Upon her release, she was given a job as a laundress. Sadly, this did not last, after wounding her arm and several unsuccessful years, she started cooking again. She used fake surnames such as Brown and took these jobs against the explicit instructions of the health authorities. It worked for a bit.
However, in 1915, Mallon started working at Sloane Hospital for Women; it was again a disaster. Soon 25 people were infected and two died. Soper soon found out and he identified Mallon, again.
This time it was the end: she was to be quarantined for the rest of her obscure life. She remained on North Brother for more than 23 years until one day, in 1938, she died of pneumonia. She lived for a miserable 69 years in a miserable disposition. Her life was tragic, her life was hard, her life had been unjust-she must have been wondering on her deathbed, why have I been the carrier of this deadly disease? Why I? Her asymptomatic survival had been her downfall and with it little remained of her. She was a woman who was mistreated, misinterpreted, and misguided and for it, she would face an injustice no human can ever imagine- loneliness and isolation. Villian or innocent, all of us can agree, at the end of the day, the story of Mary Mallon is one of tragedy.
