Emma Gan

McGee/Romano
Typhoid Mary
01 April 2016
Typhoid Mary
When does promoting the common good take precedence over government protection of
individual rights? The US Congress has often faced this dilemma, but one of the more prominent
occurrences include the case of Mary Mallon, also called Typhoid Mary, in the 1900s. She was
the first chronic carrier of a disease identified who spread disease without being ill herself. After
she was linked to multiple deaths and outbreaks of typhoid, she was quarantined indefinitely by
public health officials. Today, most people currently associate Typhoid Mary with an image of a
callous woman uncaring of the health of others and willfully spreading death and disease. This
portrayal is clearly evident in the song Typhoid Mary, by God Dethroned, which emphasizes
the cruelty displayed by Mallon. However, some argue that her unwillingness to cooperate
combined with discriminatory factors ultimately caused the harsh treatment of Typhoid Mary to
be unfair and unconstitutional. No matter the viewpoint, there is no doubt that the case of
Typhoid Mary was extremely influential in better defining the fine line between government
infringement upon personal liberties and protection of the greater good.
The history of Mary Mallon and her experiences with typhoid is long and lengthy. In the
1800s, typhoid fever was a deadly disease that infected up to 50 people in 100,000. Infected
patients typically suffered through a month of high fevers, red marks, stomachaches, and
headaches, but the disease often caused death because of primitive health care (Mary Mallon).
Mary Mallon was an Irish immigrant who worked as a cook. She was born in 1869 and became

the first typhoid carrier documented. Although she herself was immune to typhoid, she acted as a
"human culture tube" by spreading typhoid bacteria through her stool (Lerner and Lerner). She
was the cause of at least three deaths and 53 cases of typhoid, with thousands of other infections
possibly linked to her (Mary Mallon).
Mallons carrier status was discovered in 1906, when a typhoid outbreak struck six out of
eleven people living in a rented house in Oyster Bay, NY. The owner was fearful of future
outbreaks and hired Dr. Soper, a sanitary engineer and epidemiologist, to investigate the source
of the disease (Gordon). After Dr. Soper hypothesized that Mallon was the cause of at last seven
typhoid epidemics, she was then confined in 1907. She refused to consider herself a carrier and
violently protested her imprisonment by attacking the health officers who came to collect her.
The discovery of a typhoid carrier blew up on the news, and she was then nicknamed Typhoid
Mary (Lerner and Lerner). Although those like Dr. Soper believed Mallon's quarantine was
necessary for the collective good, there were those who thought otherwise, including Mallon
herself. She found no reason for the imprisonment and forced isolation and refused to believe she
was a carrier. Mallon was released after a three year quarantine after a long struggle with
authorities on the promise of changing employment from a cook (Mary Mallon). She was
unfortunately quarantined yet again after she was found working as a cook in 1915 at the Sloane
Hospital for Women in New York City, as she disbelieved her carrier status and found her new
occupation as a laundress to be a lower paying job (Greenwood). This time, the general feeling
towards her was one of disapproval, and there was to be no pity for her this time in regards to
imprisonment and treatment, since she had caused another typhoid outbreak (Mary Mallon).
Regarding her situation, Dr. Soper stated, She was known willfully and deliberately to have
taken desperate chances with human life, and this against the specific instructions of the Health

Department... She had abused her privilege (Mary Mallon). This sentiment was the consensus
of the general public as well, which led to the forced isolation of Mallon for the rest of her life.
However, Mallon still felt unjustly persecuted up until her death in 1938. The phrase "Typhoid
Mary" now means anyone who spreads disease or evil without regards for the safety of others. In
fact, a Marvel comic book villain with a hot temper is named after her (Greenwood).
Although most people associate Typhoid Mary with an uncaring, ignorant, selfish
woman, there are some who argue that Mallon was merely protesting the best she could. She was
not illiterate or uneducated, and she had a particular liking towards English novels and
newspapers like The New York Times. One argument stated that as carriers had not been
previously documented and the idea of them was merely a theory (albeit one with substantial
evidence), Mallon had not previously heard of such a thing, which would cause her initial
violence and refusal to understand. Yet others claimed that it was in fact her passion for cooking
that was the reason for Mallons initial resistance and her later regression. Her only source of
income was through cooking, and Dr. Sopers claims at their first meeting would destroy her
career if she chose to believe him (Gordon). Whatever the reasons for her initial resistance, the
fact remains that Mallon was the only carrier to be imprisoned for life. Some attribute the unfair
treatment of Mallon to the fact that she was "female, Irish, uncooperative, and without a family
(Greenwood). One of the earliest protests involving the controversy surrounding Mary Mallon
and her imprisonment was the infringement upon her personal liberties. Even though
governments have an obligation to protect the public, another duty is the protection of individual
rights and civil liberties. Although it was considered morally wrong to transmit typhoid, the Bill
of Rights was expected to protect Mallon from unjust seizure and confinement without a trial
(Lerner and Lerner). However, there have been valid counter arguments stressing the necessity of

public protection over individual rights. By the turn of the twentieth century, most Americans
agreed that the government was obliged to prevent disease when possible, even at the risk of
infringing upon personal liberties. Mallon's case proved how quarantines were essential to ensure
the health of the public, leading to laws such as the Public Health Service Act of 1944 (Lerner
and Lerner). Although some people have more positive views of Mallon, Typhoid Mary is still
seen by most as a harmful menace to society.
Typhoid Mary by God Dethroned is a dark song addressing death and disease in
reference to Typhoid Mary and the different sides of her. The song uses allusions, symbolism,
and metaphors to illustrate a sense of death and disease and the contrasting elements of her
character. One lyric states, She wears the sign of the reaper/She is a child of the night. The
reaper is an allusion to death, like the Grim Reaper, mentioned in order to bring to mind
someone bringing death to those surrounding him/her. Typhoid Mary is being compared to a
child of the night, which symbolically means someone dark or evil. In one of the two contrasting
depictions of Typhoid Mary, Typhoid Mary is described as a soulless divine and a bringer of
disease. In this representation of Typhoid Mary, she clearly does not show any remorse or guilt
for the death she brings. However, she may also have a more humane side, which is shown by
the references to her hands [touching] you so gently and Typhoid Mary being an angel of
disease. This juxtaposition ties into the contrasting views of her imprisonment and her guilt.
Although the real Typhoid Mary felt as if she was innocent or was willfully ignorant of the
situation, represented in the song as her more gentle side, there is no doubt that she caused
disease outbreaks leading to death, symbolized by mentions of her likeness to death. The rare
occurrences of gentleness is overshadowed by the deaths she caused, and she is still ultimately an
evil figure in the song.

The case of Typhoid Mary illustrates how government duties of upholding personal
liberties and protection of the greater good can conflict. Because Typhoid Mary felt unfairly
imprisoned for the entirety of her quarantine, this raised the issue of consent and individual
freedoms regarding quarantines, one of the first cases in US history. The harsh treatment endured
by only Typhoid Mary may have been due to discrimination of her nationality and gender;
however, because she nonetheless resisted government authorities, she is ultimately remembered
as a heartless, ignorant woman intent on spreading disease. This viewpoint is also shown in
Typhoid Mary by God Dethroned, which depicts her as a symbol of death. Regardless of the
perspective of Typhoid Mary as evil or innocent, it is clear that she was not given a choice in her
imprisonment. Her relevance to today in terms of autonomy and governmental infringement is
just as significant; history can repeat, and a controversial case may ultimately lead to a breach of
individual rights.

Works Cited
Gordon, John Steele. The Passion of Typhoid Mary; Mary Mallon Could Do One Thing Very
Well, and All She Wanted Was to Be Left to It. American Heritage May 1994: 118. US
History Collection. Web. 10 Mar. 2016.
Greenwood, Veronique. Fever Pitch: The Frightening Legacy of Typhoid Mary. Smithsonian
Mar. 2015: 9. Student Resources in Context. Web. 10 Mar. 2016.
Lerner, K. Lee, and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, eds. Medicine, Health, and Bioethics: Essential
Primary Sources. Detroit: Gale, 2006. U.S. History in Context. Web. 8 Mar. 2016.
Mary Mallon. Encyclopedia of World Biography. Vol. 21. Detroit: Gale, 2001. N. pag. U.S.
History in Context. Web. 4 Mar. 2016.