Shelby Jackson

Anatomy Period 2
Typhoid Mary Paper
September 2, 2009

Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary). was the first woman to be indentified as a healthy

carrier of typhoid fever. Typhoid Mary was an Irish immigrant who worked as a cook for

wealthy families for 10 years. Typhoid Mary affected 47 people with typhoid people, 3 of

which had died.

Mary worked as a cook in New York from 1900-1907 in that time she worked for 8

different families 7 of which developed typhoid fever. In 1906, George Soper was asked to

investigate an outbreak of typhoid at a summer home in Oyster Bay, Long Island. That

summer, six of the eleven members of the household had become ill three weeks after the

arrival of the family's new cook. After searching for sources of contamination like spoiled

food or contaminated water, Soper began to suspect a human carrier, and learned that the

cook had disappeared. He tracked Mallon through her employment agency, and finally

located her in the New York home of her current employer. Soper assumed that Mallon was

unaware that she was the cause of the repeated outbreaks and would be happy to find out

how to guard against future tragedies, he was wrong. Mary put up a fight so Soper decided

to leave in the hope that she would come to her senses and let him test her.

Unable to gain Mallon's consent to be examined, Soper turned the case over to the

New York City Department of Health. The Health Department sent a team, including

inspector Dr. S. Josephine Baker, three police officers and several interns, to collect Mallon.

When the crew arrived at the house, Mallon herself opened the door, only to slam it again

when she realized what was happening. She ran and hid. The officers spent hours searching
the house and were about to give up when one noticed a bit of fabric poking out from a

closet door. They then put Mary into the ambulance and took her to the hospital.

At the hospital they tested Mary for typhoid fever and as Soper had suspected, even

though Mary appeared to be perfectly healthy, her stools contained a pure culture of the

bacteria that causes typhoid fever. Finally, Soper's theory was proven. Mallon had acted as a

human carrier of the disease, perhaps as a result of a childhood case of typhoid that she

couldn't even recall.

In 1910, after three years in isolation at Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island

in New York, the Health Commissioner released Mary upon her agreement to avoid

employment as a cook and to keep in close contact with health authorities. After 2 years of

staying in contact Typhoid Mary disappeared. In 1915 an outbreak of typhoid fever broke

out at the Sloane Hospital in New York City, twenty-five nurses and other workers became

ill and epidemiologist Soper was once again called in to determine the source of the

infection. Soper learned that workers had nicknamed a cook "Typhoid Mary," and

immediately knew he had once again found him self face to face with Mary Mallon.

Following her second capture, Mallon spent the rest of her life at Riverside Hospital,

more than half her life having been spent confined on the island. After a series of small

strokes, she suffered a major stroke in 1932 that left her paralyzed until November 11,

1938, when she died.