History on Typhoid Mary

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Fast Facts:

Typhoid Mary

Typhoid Mary's real name was Mary Mallon.

 

Mallon was the first person found to be a " healthy carrier " of typhoid

fever in the United States.

 

Mallon is attributed with infecting 47 people with typhoid fever,

three of whom died.

 

Health officials tried to cure Mallon by giving her Hexamethylenamin,

laxatives, Urotropin, and brewer's yeast but none of them worked.

 

Immunization for typhoid fever became available after 1911.

 

Typhoid fever has a ten percent fatality rate.

 

Mallon was isolated on North Brother Island for a total of 26 years.

 

Mary Mallon seemed a healthy woman when a health inspector knocked on

her door in 1907, yet she was the cause of several typhoid outbreaks.

Since Mary was the first " healthy carrier " of typhoid fever in the

United States, she did not understand how someone not sick could

spread disease - so she tried to fight back.

After a trial and then a short run from health officials, Mary was

recaptured and forced to live in relative seclusion upon North Brother

Island. Who was Mary Mallon and how did she spread typhoid fever?

 

 

An Investigation

For 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 and his wife in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Also for the summer,

the Warrens hired Marry Mallon to be their cook.

On August 27, one of the Warren's daughters became ill with typhoid

fever. Soon, 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.

 

Since the common ways 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 of the

outbreak. Thus, the Thompsons hired investigators to find the cause.

 

Unfortunately, the investigators were unable to determine the cause so

the Thompsons hired George Soper, a civil engineer with experience in

typhoid fever outbreaks. It was Soper who believed the recently hired

cook, Mary Mallon, was the cause. Mallon had left the Warren's

approximately three weeks after the outbreak. Soper began to research

her employment history for more clues.

 

Mary Mallon was born on September 23, 1869 in Cookstown, Ireland.

According to what she told friends, Mallon emigrated to America around

the age of 15. Like most Irish immigrant women, Mallon found a job as

a domestic servant. Finding she had a talent for cooking, Mallon

became a cook, which paid better wages than many other domestic

service positions.

 

Soper was able to trace Mallon's employment history back to 1900. He

found that typhoid outbreaks had followed Mallon from job to job. From

1900 to 1907, Soper found Mallon had worked at seven jobs in which 22

people had become ill, including one young girl who died, with typhoid

fever shortly after Mallon had come to work for them.1

 

Soper was satisfied that this was much more than a coincidence; yet,

he still needed proof to scientifically determine that Mallon was the

cause. Soper needed stool and blood samples from Mallon.

 

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