Editing Mary Mallon (section)

=== 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}}