NOVEMBER 2017 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 79
REAR VIEW
But he continued to zealously stalk
Mallon. The health department,
backed up by police, apprehended
Mallon in 1907 after chasing her
for hours, and forced her to give
samples. Her stool tested positive
for typhoid.
Up the River
With no trial, against her will,
Mallon was physically restrained
and taken to North Brother Island
near Rikers Island. She was placed
in involuntary confinement in a
bungalow.
During the typhoid epidemic,
people panicked, distrustful of
each other and the authorities, and
carriers were attacked by mobs. As
Anthony Bourdain writes in Typhoid
Mary, “It was not unheard of
for those thought to be infected to
be run out of town on a rail or set
adrift in the Long Island Sound.”
During two years in confinement,
most of her stool samples tested
positive for typhoid. But no one
tried to explain to Mallon why
being a carrier was dangerous.
After being hounded by Soper, she
complained that city officials were
persecuting her, insisting she had
done no wrong. In 1908, the Journal
of the American Medical Association
dubbed her “Typhoid Mary.” Public
sentiment was against her: She was a
single, headstrong Irishwoman with
no family or children, said to be
the source of hundreds of typhoid
infections.
A new health commissioner freed
her in 1910. She promised to work
as a domestic and not cook. But
the department never trained her
for a job that would pay well. Her
laundress’ pay was inadequate so
she resumed cooking, under assumed
names. She fled her position
at Sloane Maternity in Manhattan
after 25 people fell ill—and two
died—in three months. While
working as a cook on a Long Island
estate in 1915, she was apprehended,
and again confined.
She protested by writing letters,
saying she had “always been
healthy,” and asking, “Why should
I be banished like a leper and compelled
to live in solitary confinement?”
Doctors tried convincing
her that while she seemed healthy,
she spread bacteria. She didn’t
believe them. They told her to wash
her hands more often, more carefully.
She didn’t listen.
Soper had described Mallon’s
violent temper. Others said she had
trouble making or keeping friends.
She was seen as extremely determined
and painfully isolated, even
before being pursued.
But what if her suspicions resulted
from her childhood typhoid? The
Mayo Clinic states, “Untreated
typhoid can cause permanent psychiatric
problems such as delirium,
hallucinations, and paranoia over
the long term,” defining paranoia as
“a symptom of a psychotic disorder
in which patients become suspicious
of others and feel that the
world is out to get them.”
After 26 years of captivity, Mallon
died in 1938. Historians say she
contaminated at least 122 people
and killed five. That same year,
some 400 healthy carriers were
identified and observed by health
officials—but they were not confined.
Mallon had broken no laws,
but was exiled. Some say she was
judged for being an Irish immigrant,
for not staying out of the
kitchen, and for being a noncompliant
single woman.
After Mallon’s death, Soper wrote,
“There was no autopsy.” Others
reported that an autopsy was performed
and showed that she shed
Salmonella typhi bacteria from her
gallstones. The National Institutes
of Medicine calls the latter “another
urban legend, whispered by the
Health Center of Oyster Bay, in
order to calm ethical reactions.”
An illustration of Typhoid Mary
that appeared in the June 20,
1909 issue of The New York American.
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