1. Mary Mallon, commonly known as Typhoid Mary, was an Irish-born American cook who is believed to have infected between 51 and 122 people with typhoid fever.
51 Facts About Mary Mallon
1. 2.
Mary Mallon was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogenic bacterium Salmonella typhi.
3.
Mary Mallon was forcibly quarantined twice by authorities, the second time for the remainder of her life because she persisted in working as a cook and thereby exposed others to the disease.
4.
Mary Mallon was born in 1869 in Cookstown, County Tyrone, Ireland.
5.
Mary Mallon lived with her aunt and uncle for a time and worked as a maid but eventually became a cook for affluent families.
6.
From 1900 to 1907, Mary Mallon worked as a cook in the New York City area for eight families, seven of whom contracted typhoid.
7.
Mary Mallon then went to work for a lawyer and left after seven of the eight people in that household became ill.
8.
Immediately after the outbreak began, Mary Mallon left and relocated to Tuxedo Park, where she was hired by George Kessler.
9.
Mary Mallon went along with the Warrens when they rented a house in Oyster Bay for the summer of 1906.
10.
Mary Mallon discovered that a female Irish cook, who fit the physical description he had been given, was involved in all of the outbreaks.
11.
Mary Mallon was unable to locate her because she generally left after an outbreak began, without giving a forwarding address.
12.
Soper learned of the case while it was still active and discovered Mary Mallon was the cook.
13.
When Mary Mallon refused to give samples, Soper decided to compile a five-year history of her employment.
14.
Mary Mallon found that, of the eight families that had hired Mallon as a cook, members of seven claimed to have contracted typhoid fever.
15.
Mary Mallon took Raymond Hoobler to persuade Mary to give them urine and stool samples for analysis.
16.
Mary Mallon again refused to cooperate, claiming that typhoid was everywhere and that the outbreaks had happened because of contaminated food and water.
17.
The new cook, Mary Mallon, remained in the family only a short time and left about three weeks after the outbreak occurred.
18.
Mary Mallon was described as an Irish woman about 40 years of age, tall, heavy, single.
19.
Soper notified the New York City Health Department, whose investigators realized that Mary Mallon was a typhoid carrier.
20.
Mary Mallon was forced into an ambulance by five policemen and Sara Josephine Baker, who at some time had to sit on Mallon to restrain her.
21.
Mary Mallon was transported to the Willard Parker Hospital, where she was restrained and forced to give samples.
22.
On March 19,1907, Mary Mallon was sentenced to quarantine on North Brother Island.
23.
Mary Mallon was unwilling to stop working as a cook, a job that earned more money for her than any other.
24.
Mary Mallon angrily rejected his proposal and locked herself in the bathroom until he left.
25.
Mary Mallon hated the nickname and wrote in a letter to her lawyer:.
26.
Mary Mallon suffered from a nervous breakdown after her arrest and forcible transportation to the hospital.
27.
Mary Mallon was obliged to give samples for analysis three times a week, but for six months was not allowed to visit an eye doctor, even though her eyelid was paralyzed and she had to bandage it at night.
28.
Mary Mallon was first told that she had typhoid in her intestinal tract, then in her bowel muscles, then in her gallbladder.
29.
Mary Mallon herself claimed never to believe that she was a carrier.
30.
Mary Mallon used fake surnames like Breshof or Brown, and accepted jobs as a cook against the explicit instructions of health authorities.
31.
In 1915, Mary Mallon started working at Sloane Hospital for Women in New York City.
32.
Mary Mallon fled again, but the police were able to find and arrest her when she took food to a friend on Long Island.
33.
Mary Mallon was returned to quarantine on North Brother Island on March 27,1915.
34.
Mary Mallon remained on North Brother for more than 23 years, and the authorities gave her a private one-story cottage.
35.
Mary Mallon organized a laboratory on the second floor of the chapel and offered Mallon a job as a technician.
36.
Mary Mallon washed bottles, did recordings, and prepared glasses for pathologists.
37.
The articles at first mentioned how Josephine Baker claimed Mary Mallon attacked her and the other doctors with forks, and came at them fighting and swearing.
38.
The newspapers claimed that Mary Mallon was prohibited from using the telephone to contact anybody except the surgeons treating her and her guard.
39.
Mary Mallon spent the rest of her life in quarantine at Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island.
40.
Mary Mallon was quite active until 1932, when she suffered a stroke; afterwards, she was confined to the hospital.
41.
Mary Mallon's body was cremated, and her ashes were buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx.
42.
Mary Mallon's case became the first in which an asymptomatic carrier was discovered and isolated forcibly.
43.
Research has resulted in an estimate that Mary Mallon had contaminated "at least one hundred and twenty two people, including five dead".
44.
Historians frequently discuss the argument of Mary Mallon knowing that she was infecting her clients with typhoid based on the frequency of the disease being present after her departure.
45.
At the time, asymptomatic carriers were not understood and Mary Mallon was believed to have said that she did not feel sick, look sick, or have any sort of visible sickness.
46.
Mary Mallon was the first person found to be an asymptomatic carrier of the typhoid bacterium, and this caused the health officials to have little to no idea of how to deal with her.
47.
However, Mary Mallon's case helped these officials identify other people who carried diseases that were dormant in their bodies based on the information they learned from Mary Mallon's case.
48.
Mary Mallon's case created controversy concerning personal autonomy and social responsibility.
49.
The phrase "Typhoid Mary Mallon" is a colloquial term for anyone who spreads disease or something else undesirable.
50.
Typhoid Mary Mallon Fisk, known as Bloody Mary Mallon and Mutant Zero, is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.
51.
Mary Mallon was portrayed by Melissa McMeekin in season one of the television series The Knick, in a somewhat fictionalised account of her initial infection of countless wealthy households.