Editing Mary Mallon (section)

==Biography==

===Early life===
Mary Mallon was born in 1869 in [[Cookstown]], [[County Tyrone]], [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Ireland]]. She may have been born with typhoid fever as her mother was infected during pregnancy.{{sfn|Adler|Mara|2016|pp=137–145}}{{sfn|Walzer Leavitt|1996|p=14}}{{sfn|Elsevier|2013|p=189}} In 1884 at the age of 15, she emigrated from Ireland to the United States.{{sfn|Walzer Leavitt|1996|p=14}}{{sfn|Cliff|Smallman-Raynor|2013|p=86}} She lived with her aunt and uncle for a time and worked as a maid but eventually became a cook for affluent families.{{sfn|Kenny|2014|p=187}}{{sfn|Adler|Mara|2016|p=137}}

===Career===
From 1900 to 1907, Mallon worked as a cook in the New York City area for eight families, seven of whom contracted typhoid.{{sfn|Elsevier|2013|p=56}}{{sfn|Walzer Leavitt|1996|p=16}} In 1900, she worked in [[Mamaroneck, New York]], where within two weeks of her employment, residents developed typhoid fever. In 1901, she relocated to [[Manhattan]], where members of the family for whom she worked developed fevers and [[diarrhea]]. Mallon then went to work for a lawyer and left after seven of the eight people in that household became ill.<ref name="TheStraightDope">{{cite web|author1=Dex|author2=McCaff|url=http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1816/who-was-typhoid-mary|title=Who was Typhoid Mary?|website=The Straight Dope|date=August 14, 2000|access-date=June 7, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171230172306/https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1816/who-was-typhoid-mary/|archive-date=December 30, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Adler|Mara|2016|pp=140–141}}

In June 1904, she was hired by a prosperous lawyer, Henry Gilsey. Soon four of the seven servants were ill. No Gilsey family members were infected because they resided separately, and the servants lived in their own house. Immediately after the outbreak began, Mallon left and relocated to [[Tuxedo Park, New York|Tuxedo Park]],{{sfn|Soper|1939|p=703}} where she was hired by George Kessler. Two weeks later, the laundry worker in his household was infected and taken to [[St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center]], where her case of typhoid was the first in a long time. The investigator Dr. R. L. Wilson concluded that the laundry worker had caused the outbreak, but he failed to prove it. The laundry worker died soon afterward.{{sfn|Adler|Mara|2016|p=137}}

In August 1906, Mallon began a job in [[Oyster Bay (hamlet), New York|Oyster Bay]] on [[Long Island]] with the family of a wealthy New York banker, Charles Elliot Warren.{{sfn|Campbell Bartoletti|2015|p=180}} Mallon went along with the Warrens when they rented a house in Oyster Bay for the summer of 1906. From August 27 to September 3, six of the 11 people in the family came down with typhoid fever. According to three medical doctors, the disease at that time was "unusual" in Oyster Bay. The landlord, understanding that it would be difficult to rent a house with the reputation of having typhoid, hired several independent experts to find the source of the infection. They took water samples from pipes, faucets, toilets, and the cesspool, all of which were negative for typhoid.{{sfn|Marineli|Tsoucalas|Karamanou|Androutsos|2013}}{{sfn|Soper|1939|p=699}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://orauportal.fda.gov/courseware/FD202W100/SCORM_FD202_Module_3_Microbiology/Module_3_Dinner_With_Typhoid_Mary.pdf|title=Dinner With Typhoid Mary|website=FDA|access-date=July 1, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221191421/https://orauportal.fda.gov/courseware/FD202W100/SCORM_FD202_Module_3_Microbiology/Module_3_Dinner_With_Typhoid_Mary.pdf|archive-date=December 21, 2019|url-status=dead}}</ref>
<ref name="TheStraightDope" />

=== Investigation ===
[[George Soper]], an investigator hired by the Oyster Bay property owner after the outbreak there, had been trying to determine the cause of typhoid outbreaks in affluent families, when it was known that the disease typically occurred in unsanitary conditions. He discovered that a female Irish cook, who fit the physical description he had been given, was involved in all of the outbreaks. He was unable to locate her because she generally left after an outbreak began, without giving a forwarding address. The Park Avenue outbreak helped to identify Mallon as the source of the infections. Soper learned of the case while it was still active and discovered Mallon was the cook.<ref name="TheStraightDope" />

Soper first met Mallon in the kitchen of the Bownes' Park Avenue penthouse and accused her of spreading the disease. Though Soper himself recollected his behavior "as diplomatic as possible", he infuriated Mallon and she threatened him with a carving fork.<ref name="TheStraightDope" /><ref>{{cite journal|last = Soper|first = George A.|title = The work of a chronic typhoid germ distributor|journal = [[J Am Med Assoc]]|volume = 48|issue = 24|pages = 2019–2022|date = June 15, 1907|doi = 10.1001/jama.1907.25220500025002d|url = https://zenodo.org/record/1423366|access-date = July 5, 2019|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20191221191415/https://zenodo.org/record/1423366|archive-date = December 21, 2019|url-status = live}}</ref> When Mallon refused to give samples, Soper decided to compile a five-year history of her employment. He found that, of the eight families that had hired Mallon as a cook, members of seven claimed to have contracted typhoid fever.<ref>{{cite book|last=Satin|first=Morton|title=Death in the Pot|year=2007|publisher=Prometheus Books|location=New York|page=169}}</ref> Then Soper learned where Mallon's boyfriend lived and arranged a new meeting there. He took Raymond Hoobler to persuade Mary to give them urine and stool samples for analysis. Mallon again refused to cooperate, claiming that typhoid was everywhere and that the outbreaks had happened because of contaminated food and water. At that time, the concept of healthy carriers was unknown even to healthcare workers.{{sfn|Adler|Mara|2016|p=137}}{{sfn|Soper|1939|pp=704–705}}{{sfn|Rogers|2017|pp=72–74}}

Soper published his findings on June 15, 1907, in the [[JAMA (journal)|'' Journal of the American Medical Association'']].<ref name=Newsday>{{cite news|author=Ochs, Ridgely|date=2007|title=Dinner with Typhoid Mary|newspaper=[[Newsday]]}}</ref> He wrote:

<blockquote>
It was found that the family changed cooks on August 4. This was about three weeks before the typhoid epidemic broke out. The new cook, Mallon, remained in the family only a short time and left about three weeks after the outbreak occurred. Mallon was described as an Irish woman about 40 years of age, tall, heavy, single. She seemed to be in perfect health.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://orauportal.fda.gov/courseware/FD202W100/SCORM_FD202_Module_3_Microbiology/Module_3_Dinner_With_Typhoid_Mary.pdf|title=Dinner With Typhoid Mary|website=FDA|access-date=July 1, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221191421/https://orauportal.fda.gov/courseware/FD202W100/SCORM_FD202_Module_3_Microbiology/Module_3_Dinner_With_Typhoid_Mary.pdf|archive-date=December 21, 2019|url-status=dead}}</ref>
</blockquote>

=== First quarantine (1907–1910) ===
[[Image:Mary Mallon in hospital.jpg|thumb|Mallon (foreground) in a hospital bed.]]

Soper notified the [[New York City Health Department]], whose investigators realized that Mallon was a typhoid carrier. By sections 1169 and 1170 of the [[New York City Charter|Greater New York Charter]], Mallon was arrested as a public health threat. She was forced into an ambulance by five policemen and Dr. [[Sara Josephine Baker]], who at some time had to sit on Mallon to restrain her.{{sfn|Soper|1939|pp=704–705}} Mallon was transported to the [[Willard Parker Hospital]], where she was restrained and forced to give samples. For four days, she was not allowed to get up and use the bathroom on her own.{{sfn|Alexander|2004}} The massive numbers of typhoid bacteria that were discovered in her stool samples indicated that the infection source was in her [[gallbladder]]. During questioning, Mallon admitted that she almost never washed her hands. This was not unusual at the time; the [[germ theory of disease]] put forth by obstetrician Dr. [[Ignaz Semmelweis]] in the 1860s and surgeon Dr. [[Joseph Lister]] in the 1880s was still not fully accepted by the general public, especially by the undereducated. <ref name=TheStraightDope/>{{sfn|Adler|Mara|2016|p=143}}

On March 19, 1907, Mallon was sentenced to quarantine on [[North and South Brother Islands (New York City)|North Brother Island]]. While quarantined she gave stool and urine samples three times per week. Authorities suggested removing her gallbladder, but she refused because she claimed she did not believe she carried the disease. At the time, gallbladder removal was dangerous, and people had died from the procedure.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Brooks|first=J|date=March 15, 1996|title=The sad and tragic life of Typhoid Mary|journal=CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal|volume=154|issue=6|pages=915–916|issn=0820-3946|pmc=1487781|pmid=8634973}}</ref> Mallon was also unwilling to stop working as a cook, a job that earned more money for her than any other. Having no home of her own, she was always on the verge of poverty.

After the publication of Soper's article in the ''Journal of the American Medical Association'', Mallon attracted extensive media attention and received the nickname "Typhoid Mary".<ref name=letter>{{cite web
|url          = https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/typhoid/letter.html
|title        = In Her Own Words
|publisher    = NOVA PBS
|access-date   = May 14, 2020
|archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20100426042928/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/typhoid/letter.html
|archive-date = April 26, 2010
|url-status   = live
}}</ref>  Later, in a textbook that defined typhoid fever, she again was termed "Typhoid Mary".<ref>{{cite book|last=Satin|first=Morton|title=Death in the Pot|year=2007|publisher=[[Prometheus Books]]|location=New York|page=171}}</ref>

Soper visited Mallon in quarantine, telling her he would write a book and give her part of the royalties.{{sfn|Soper|1939|p=709}} She angrily rejected his proposal and locked herself in the bathroom until he left.<ref>{{cite episode|title=The Most Dangerous Woman In America|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JPCZOb7z2w|access-date=August 31, 2014|series=Nova|series-link=Nova (American TV series)|network=[[PBS]]|date=October 12, 2004|number=597|time=28:42–29:52|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140721051903/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JPCZOb7z2w|archive-date=July 21, 2014|url-status=live}}</ref> She hated the nickname and wrote in a letter to her lawyer:
<blockquote>
I wonder how the said [[William Hallock Park|Dr. William H. Park]] would like to be insulted and put in the Journal and call him or his wife Typhoid William Park.<ref name=letter/>
</blockquote>

Not all medical experts endorsed the decision to forcibly quarantine Mallon. For example, [[Milton J. Rosenau]] and [[Charles V. Chapin]] both argued that she just had to be taught to carefully treat her condition and ensure that she would not transmit the typhoid to others. Both considered isolation to be an unnecessary, overly strict punishment.{{sfn|Walzer Leavitt|Numbers|1997|p=560}} Mallon suffered from a nervous breakdown after her arrest and forcible transportation to the hospital. In 1909 she tried to sue the New York Health Department, but her complaint was denied and the case dismissed by the [[New York Supreme Court]].<ref>{{cite web
 |url          = https://www.loc.gov/rr/news/topics/typhoid.html
 |title        = Topics in Chronicling America - Typhoid Mary
 |publisher    = The Library of Congress
 |date         = October 9, 2014
|access-date   = May 11, 2020
|archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20200425072906/https://www.loc.gov/rr/news/topics/typhoid.html
 |archive-date = April 25, 2020
|url-status   = live
}}</ref> In a letter to her lawyer she complained that she was treated like a "guinea pig". She 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. Her medical treatment was hectic: she was given [[urotropin]] in three-month courses for a year, threatening to destroy her [[kidney]]s. That was changed to brewer's [[yeast]] and [[urotropin]] in increasing doses.{{sfn|Walzer Leavitt|Numbers|1997|p=561}}<ref name=letter/>{{sfn|Adler|Mara|2016|pp=143–145}} She was first told that she had typhoid in her intestinal tract, then in her bowel muscles, then in her gallbladder.<ref name=letter/>

Mallon herself claimed never to believe that she was a carrier. With the help of a friend, she sent several samples to an independent New York laboratory. All came back negative for typhoid.{{sfn|Walzer Leavitt|Numbers|1997|p=560}} On North Brother Island, almost a quarter of her analyses from March 1907 through June 1909 were also negative.{{sfn|Alexander|2004}} After 2 years and 11 months of Mallon's quarantine, [[Eugene H. Porter]], the [[New York State Commissioner of Health]], decided that disease carriers should no longer be quarantined and that Mallon could be freed if she agreed to stop working as a cook and take reasonable efforts to avoid transmitting typhoid to others. On February 19, 1910, Mallon said she was "prepared to change her occupation (that of a cook), and would give assurance by [[affidavit]] that she would upon her release take such hygienic precautions as would protect those with whom she came in contact, from infection."{{sfn|Soper|1939|pp=708–710}} She was released from quarantine and returned to the mainland.{{sfn|Adler|Mara|2016|pp=143–145}}<ref name="isbe"/>{{sfn|Marion Daily Mirror|1910|p=2}}

===Release and second quarantine (1915–1938)===
[[File:Mallon-Mary 01.jpg|thumb|Poster depiction of "Typhoid Mary" (1909).]]
Upon her release, Mallon was given a job as a laundry worker, which paid less than cooking—$20 per month instead of $50. After a time she wounded her arm and the wound became infected, meaning that she could not work at all for six months.<ref name=pbs/> After several unsuccessful years, she started cooking again. She used fake surnames like Breshof or Brown, and accepted jobs as a cook against the explicit instructions of health authorities. No agencies that hired servants for affluent families would offer her employment, so for the next five years, she worked in a number of kitchens in restaurants, hotels, and spa facilities. Almost everywhere she worked, there were outbreaks of typhoid.{{sfn|Soper|1939|pp=708–710}} However, she changed jobs frequently, and Soper was unable to find her.<ref name=TheStraightDope/>

In 1915, Mallon started working at [[Sloane Hospital for Women]] in New York City. Soon 25 people were infected, and two died. The chief obstetrician, Edward B. Cragin, called Soper and asked him to help in the investigation. Soper identified Mallon from the servants' verbal descriptions and also by her handwriting.{{sfn|Soper|1939|pp=708–710}}<ref name=pbs/>

Mallon fled again, but the police were able to find and arrest her when she took food to a friend on Long Island.<ref name=TheStraightDope/><ref name="isbe">{{cite web
| url=http://www.isbe.net/career/pdf/fcs_guide.pdf
| title=Food Science Curriculum
| website=Illinois State Board of Education
| page=118
| access-date=February 9, 2011
| url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101218233409/http://isbe.net/career/pdf/fcs_guide.pdf
| archive-date=December 18, 2010
| df=mdy-all }}</ref> Mallon was returned to quarantine on [[North and South Brother Islands (New York City)|North Brother Island]] on March 27, 1915.<ref name="isbe"/><ref name=pbs>{{cite web
 |author       = Leavitt, Judith
 |url          = https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/typhoid-mary-villain-or-victim/
 |title        = Typhoid Mary: Villain or Victim?
 |publisher    = PBS Online
 |date         = October 12, 2004
|access-date   = May 11, 2020
|archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20200517174058/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/typhoid-mary-villain-or-victim/
 |archive-date = May 17, 2020
|url-status   = live
}}</ref>

Little is known about her life during the second quarantine. She remained on North Brother for more than 23 years, and the authorities gave her a private one-story cottage. As of 1918, she was allowed to take day trips to the mainland. In 1925, the physician Alexandra Plavska came to the island for an internship. She organized a laboratory on the second floor of the chapel and offered Mallon a job as a technician. Mallon washed bottles, did recordings, and prepared glasses for pathologists.{{sfn|Walzer Leavitt|1996|p=195}}{{sfn|Campbell Bartoletti|2015|p=141}}

=== Media reception ===
After Mallon was sent into her initial quarantine, the newspapers changed their opinion of her case. The articles at first mentioned how Josephine Baker claimed Mallon attacked her and the other doctors with forks, and came at them fighting and swearing.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal|last=Benenson|first=Abram S.|date=1999|title=Review of Typhoid Mary|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3343413|journal=Journal of Public Health Policy|volume=20|issue=3|pages=375–379|doi=10.2307/3343413|jstor=3343413|s2cid=189905236|issn=0197-5897}}</ref> Later the press articles shifted the blame away from being her fault, the claim being that she was unaware she was carrying anything and instead germs that she had no control over were to blame.<ref name=":0" />  Despite this shift, she was still popularly understood to have believed that she was contagious.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Foss |first=Katherine |date=April 24, 2020 |title=#TyphoidMary – now a hashtag – was a maligned immigrant who got a bum rap |url=https://theconversation.com/typhoidmary-now-a-hashtag-was-a-maligned-immigrant-who-got-a-bum-rap-136571 |work=[[The Conversation (website)|The Conversation]]}}</ref> The newspapers also claimed that Mallon was prohibited from using the telephone to contact anybody except the surgeons treating her and her guard. Stories that once celebrated the public health department and legal system eventually became sympathetic to Mallon and the events she supposedly encountered.<ref name=":0" /> Public health officials claimed the opposite, that she was treated to their best ability but in return refused to comply with the requests of the health officials.<ref name=":12">{{cite journal|last=Wald|first=Priscilla|date=1997|title=Cultures and Carriers: "Typhoid Mary" and the Science of Social Control|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/466739|journal=Social Text|issue=52/53|pages=181–214|doi=10.2307/466739|jstor=466739|issn=0164-2472}}</ref>