Guest Author - Vance Rowe
Mary Mallon worked as a cook in several households in New York City and Long Island after she emigrated to the United States, from what is known today as Northern Ireland. She would later become to be known as the infamous Typhoid Mary. She came to the U.S. in 1884 and got her first job as a cook in Mamaroneck, New York and within two weeks of her being there, the family she worked for contracted Typhoid Fever.
The Center for Disease Control says that typhoid, also called typhoid fever, is a life-threatening illness caused by the bacterium Salmonella Typhiand that there are still close to 400 cases each year In the United States and about 75% of these are acquired while traveling abroad. The CDC also claims that Typhoid fever is still common in the nonindustrial developing world, where it affects about 21.5 million people each year.
The CDC also says that Salmonella Typhi is a bacteria and people with typhoid fever carry the bacteria in their intestines and bloodstream. It is a very contagious and deadly disease and can usually be treated with antibiotics.
Typhoid fever can be contracted if you eat food or drink beverages that have been handled by a person who has Salmonella Typhi or if sewage, contaminated with Salmonella Typhi bacteria, gets into the water you use for drinking or washing food. Typhoid fever is more prevalent where hand washing is less frequent and water is likely to be contaminated with sewage.
After you eat or drink something that contains the bacteria, the bacteria will multiply and spread into the bloodstream. The body reacts with fever and other symptoms including a rash, high fever, stomach pains, headaches and loss of appetite.
Typhoid Mary was actively “shedding” the disease and is the reason that she infected so many people. She worked for many different families in the New York City area and infected most of the family members and a couple even died from the disease including another employee of one of the families. She was eventually arrested and quarantined for three years. She then signed an affidavit saying that she would never work as a cook again and was released from quarantine. She took a lower paying job as a laundress until she changed her name to Mary Brown and began working as a cook again. She infected the families and was again arrested and this time quarantined for the rest of her life which was almost thirty years. Typhoid Mary finally succumbed to pneumonia at the age of 69 in 1938. Six years prior to her death, she had a stroke and became paralyzed. Her body was cremated and the ashes were interred at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx.
