Typhoid Mary

Mary Mallon ( born September 23, 1869 in Cookstown, Ireland, † November 11, 1938 on North Brother Iceland, United States ), known as Typhoid Mary ( Typhoid Mary ), was the first person in the United States, as a non-diseased support was identified by typhoid fever, a so-called chronic carriers. It was in 1883 immigrated from Ireland.

Cook

Mallon worked 1900-1907 as a cook in the area of ​​New York City. During this time she infected 53 people with typhoid, where three of them died. Mary was not yet two weeks cook in a house in Mamaroneck, when the residents got typhoid. 1901 she moved to Manhattan, where members of this family fever and diarrhea were given and the laundry woman died. She then worked for a lawyer until seven of the eight people living in the household got typhoid. Mary used for months the people who had made them sick, but her care spread the disease only further. In 1904 she took a job on Long Iceland. Within two weeks, four of the ten family members with typhoid fever were hospitalized. She changed again their employers, and three other households were infected. Often the disease was transmitted by one of their typical desserts: ice cream and peaches.

Typhoid

George Soper was plumbing technician who was from one of the home side, worked for the Mary hired. After careful examination, he identified Mary as a possible carrier of typhoid fever. He confronted with the possibility that they spread typhus. She reacted violently to his request for urine and stool samples, and Soper went back. Later he published his results in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in the issue of June 15, 1907. Soper brought on his next visit to a doctor with Mallon, but was again rejected.

That Mallon denied the possibility that she might be a carrier of typhoid fever, partly based on the diagnosis of a respected pharmacist. This was, they do not carry the bacteria around with them. In addition, the knowledge was that a person has a disease can spread and yet not suffer from it, not widespread. Ultimately, Soper was also relatively insensitive in dealing with Mary Mallon.

Quarantine

The health department of New York City sent Dr. Josephine Baker Mallon to talk to her, but " at this point she was convinced that the authorities persecute them for no reason while they did nothing wrong. "

A few days later, Baker came up with some policemen past her workplace and took her into custody. The health inspector of New York City, she investigated and recognized as the wearer. It has been isolated for three years in a hospital on North Brother Iceland and then released under the condition, never again to work with food. However, in 1915, she returned to the boil and infected 25 people while she was working as a cook in New York's Sloane Hospital. Two of those infected died later. The health authority they then took back into custody and referred Mary Mallon for life in quarantine. It was a kind of celebrity and was interviewed by journalists who were forbidden to accept even a glass of water from her. Later she was allowed to work in the laboratories at the North Brother Iceland as a technician.

Death

Mallon died at 69 years of pneumonia, not from typhoid fever. An autopsy was performed on her, found evidence of live typhoid bacteria in her gallbladder. Her body was cremated and buried at the Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx.

Reception

After her death, Mary Mallon was included in the literature, especially by the novel The Ballad of Typhoid Mary by the Swiss author Jürg Federspiel. Based on this template as a comic by Ursula Prince, as well as several plays, the most famous of Linard Bardill.