Typhoid Mary in a 1909 newspaper illustration
In the early 1900′s Mary Mallon, was an Irish lady that came from harsh existence, arrived in america all on her own. She found jobs as a cook for the wealthy, and moved to different homes during the time she spent in New York’s lower eastside. She also worked for the wealthy in Mamaroneck, Manhattan, and Long Island, New York.
The conditions in those days were ‘slum like.” New York City, was at the time considered ” The Most Crowded City in the World”. Transportation was by horse, and if you can imagine, a city with no fresh water, very poor sanitation, and overpopulation~the stench, must have been on the scale of extreme. Horses crowded the streets and so did their manure. A horse can produce 20 to 30 pounds of manure a day. Multiply that times a couple thousand horses that traveled the streets in the 1800s and early 1900′s, and multiply that by 365 days per year, for a few years, that’s a lot of poop.
When some people came down with Typhoid Fever, it was perplexing and brought attention to some bacteriologist in the day. Of course, thinking that it had something to do with the sanitation issues, they were not able to find the source until one day a fella by the name of George Sober, sunk his teeth into the problem and would not let go until he found out why some people would come down with this disease. He went to the home of the most recent afflicted household. Interviewed everyone, and did his process of elimination, and was stumped. He questioned the family, if there had been anyone else that he was missing that summer that the infection was present. The family mentioned that there had been a cook, named Mary Mallon.
He then sought her out. When he found her, he asked to have samples of her urine and feces, she adamantly refused! I can understand her anger, in those days a position as a cook was a good gig to get, and made better money than most other household staff. Being accused of possibly infecting families that she worked for, was cause for becoming quite defensive. He attempted on other occasions, but she chased him off with threatening language, until one day…The Sanitation Department /Department of Health came to the City Slums and cleaned up. The New Department of Public Health lived by the motto ” Cleanliness was next to godliness” The team of Public Health officials always wore white. The streets were cleaned of horse manure, and the city was under new rules. People with infectious diseases were hauled off to ” Plague Island” / ” North Brother Island” until they were no longer infected with whatever disease that brought them there.
Mary had been tested, and was postive for the bacterium. They sent her to the Island, where she remained for a couple of years, until a new Health Minister heard her case, and felt sorry for her, and agreed that she didn’t need to be on that Island as long as she never worked as a cook again. Mary didn’t understand infectious disease, and how she may have infected the families that she worked for. She was released, and was suppose to check in with the Public Health Department so that they could keep tabs on her. The Department of Public Health eventually, lost her whereabouts. Until a hospital in New York had doctors, nurses, and patients that were coming down with the typhoid fever. The Department of Health recruited the biologist George Sober to investigate how these cases evolved. That is when he learned that Mary was there! That was it for Mary and her freedom. They put her back on North Brother Island, where she remained for the rest of her days.
History of North Brother Island:
North Brother Island, a 13 acre piece of history laying just southwest of Hunts Point in the East River, it is a remnant of a long-forgotten time in New York. It is now a Bird sanctuary. The clocks on North Brother stopped around 1962 when the city pulled the plug on Riverside Hospital, the main attraction on the island and a storied institution that opened in 1886; it was a place to quarantine New Yorker’s who suffered from potentially deadly and easily communicable diseases such as typhus, smallpox, and tuberculosis. To keep them isolated from the rest of the population. Years later it housed drug addicts until the 1960s. The island gained notoriety in the early 1900′s as the involuntary home of ” Typhoid” Mary Mallon, a carrier of typhus who was allegedly responsible for 3 deaths and 47 illnesses from 1907-1915.
Remember this: Typhoid Fever is a bacterium, and still exists. You have to be careful, as it is a bacteria that is found on unheated food items, if it has been contaminated. 3rd World Countries continue to warn about the disease. Here is a good video.
