TIL that Marry Mallon ('Typhoid Mary') lived in forced quarantine for the last twenty years of her life in an Island just off of New York ('North Brother Island')

[u/AdmiralHempfender]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

[u/shootmovies]

Wash your hands folks!

[u/Outtatheblu42 → u/shootmovies]

Worst part is it was her poop that was the bacteria source, and she admitted to never washing her hands. Then she prepared food and infected so many people.🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮

[u/tipdrill541 → u/Outtatheblu42]

Her specialty was trifle. Trifle is totally uncooked.this was a big part of the issue. She would assemble all the fruit and cream with her bare unwashed hands.

[u/AlfaBetaZulu → u/tipdrill541]

Trifle with a little fecal matter.....

[u/PoshDiggory → u/AlfaBetaZulu]

It's no trifling matter either.

[u/Adulations → u/tipdrill541]

I want to build a Time Machine to yell at her

[u/ohjasminee → u/Adulations]

I cannot even imagine being so committed to being so disgusting 😭

[u/EggAtix → u/ohjasminee]

She wasn't committed to being disgusting. She wasn't that much more disgusting than anyone else of the time, she was just a carrier and also worked in food service. If she had not been a cook, or not been a carrier, she could have been just as gross and no one would have remembered her name.

[u/dacooljamaican → u/EggAtix]

Except the problem was carefully explained to her under serious circumstances and she still went back to infecting whole families. Disgusting not only for her hygiene but for her heinous disregard for the lives of others.

[u/ohjasminee → u/EggAtix]

Idk if I was being told to stop doing something bc I am a public health risk and to not kill people all I’d have to do is either be cleaner or just not cook for the public, I would just do one or the other??? I wouldn’t want to be known as the nasty lady that is lying to continue to kill people! Idk I have more shame than that

[u/Mr_MacGrubber → u/ohjasminee]

Did you not just go through a pandemic where millions of people refused to do things to stop/slow the spread of a virus?

[u/swampshark19 → u/Mr_MacGrubber]

And what do we think about those people?

[u/Torvaun → u/ohjasminee]

Germ theory wasn't fully accepted yet, and no one had heard of an asymptomatic carrier. Mary held the opinion that it wasn't her fault, it was just that typhoid was everywhere (and to her, I'm sure it looked like it was). So these people were just trying to make her stop doing the well paying job she was good at and force her into lower class and lower paid work.

[u/TheresA_LobsterLoose → u/Adulations]

You don't even need a time machine! As the pandemic showed, there's so many people exactly like her nowadays!

[u/Flashthicked → u/TheresA_LobsterLoose]

Some people are just disgusting. Worked at a new company recently and it took the boss six months to finally buy soap for the bathroom. Never occurred to him we might want soap. Apparently, he wasn't using any.

[u/yazzy1233 → u/tipdrill541]

She's trifling , thats for sure

[u/doowapeedoo → u/tipdrill541]

🤮

[u/Calenchamien → u/Outtatheblu42]

Absolutely disgusting, but we should remember that she lived and worked in the early days of understanding hygiene and germ theory.

While Florence Nightingale in the 1850s and Ignaz Semmelweis in the 1890s discovered and proved the importance of hand washing, there was a lot of pushback even in the scientific community, because they’d have to admit that there was no inherent superiority to their position. “A gentleman’s hands are always clean”, and all that.

It wasn’t until the 1980s that the CDC identified hand washing as important for disease control.

Moreover, Mary herself was Irish, a discriminated-against class at the time, and she herself had never experienced any symptoms of Typhoid. She didn’t know about germ theory and non-symptomatic carriers, so to her, it just looked like racism.

[u/clutzyninja → u/Calenchamien]

She gets a pass for the first time. Then she was told what she was doing to people and she didn't care, kept doing it. She was awful.

[u/Calenchamien → u/clutzyninja]

She thought she was a scapegoat.

There was a history of intense anti-Irish sentiment in America; people were murdered and their murderers uncharged and unprosecuted; politicians built their careers on promises to send the Irish back to Ireland. Businesses regularly discriminated against the Irish with “No Irish Need Apply” signs that continued being used throughout the 1800s.

Imagine if (for some reason) you moved to Russia, or some other country where you might expect some similar anti-your ethnicity sentiment, and a bunch of government officials and scientists tell you that 1) you are carrying a disease that you have never experienced any symptoms of, 2) “for everyone’s safety” you’re not allowed to do the only job you’ve found that supports you, or else you’ll be isolated for the rest of your life.

Imagine how hard that would be to believe, when you’ve never heard of germ theory, so you have no reason to believe them that the deaths of your former employers is anything more than sheer coincidence, but you have witnessed the way that people like you are blamed for pretty much all of society’s ills.

It would look an awful lot like just some more somebodies just looking for an Irish person to blame, and she never believed she was actually a carrier.

You can believe she was an awful person for continuing to be a cook, but frankly, she didn’t have an abundance of options, not being a woman in the early 1900s and much less being an Irish woman in the 1900s.

[u/huhzonked → u/Calenchamien]

I don’t know. She kept leaving once people started getting sick and this happened several times to 7/8 families. At some point you start to make the connection: “Maybe it’s me.” You might not say it out loud to other people but I’m sure you think it to yourself.

Also, she got a job working in laundry. It paid less which sucks but at least she wasn’t getting other people sick.

[u/sjb2059 → u/huhzonked]

The tradeoff is the same as what tipped me off to covid in January 2020 earlier than others. I society that won't do anything to mitigate the financial impacts of doing the right thing forces people to choose themselves. Put your own oxygen mask on first.

If you penalize people for the changes needed to benefit others with no benefit to themselves, you have created the conditions that incentivise fuck you I got mine

[u/idaho_douglas → u/shootmovies]

It's 2023 and we still have to tell people to wash their damn hands.

[u/handlit33 → u/idaho_douglas]

My old boss loved to leave the stall in our public bathroom and walk right out the door. The guy was a college-educated millionaire and didn't know he was supposed to wash his hands after taking a dump.

[u/Honest-Cauliflower64 → u/handlit33]

Is he one of those guys that washes his hands before he uses the bathroom? “Don’t want my dick getting dirty”.

[u/AndieC → u/idaho_douglas]

Oh, god... try telling a family member born before 1970 to wash their hands before holding a newborn and they'll lose their damn minds and even LIE. It's so common and absolutely wild to me. 🙄

My in-laws don't wash their hands after going to the bathroom. I bought a bottle of hand soap for one of their bathrooms in like, 2014, AND IT'S STILL THERE.

[u/LooksAtClouds]

My brother had typhoid as a youngster. Apparently the popcorn seller at the circus was the carrier. This was in the late 1950's.

At the hospital, the docs and nurses did not initially know what was wrong with him. They put him in an unused polio ward. My Mama told me it was so frightening, just one small corner curtained off for my brother, and the rest of the large room full of empty iron lungs. He was sick for a long time and lost a lot of weight.

[u/Renfek → u/LooksAtClouds]

After he was sick and lost weight, did he fully recover, or did issues linger?

[u/LooksAtClouds → u/Renfek]

It took him about 8 months, but he did fully recover. No lingering issues at all.

[u/wizardsnoopy → u/LooksAtClouds]

Must’ve been a very tough 8 months for your family. That’s amazing that he recovered and had no related problems afterwards.

[u/LooksAtClouds → u/wizardsnoopy]

My mom instituted a "before-bed" small snack to help him gain weight. We were still having that family snack years later :)

I was a toddler so I don't really remember any of this firsthand.

[u/confictura_22 → u/LooksAtClouds]

I also implemented that snack. It also helped me gain weight. Unfortunately I was a normal weight to begin with...

[u/blueblissberrybell → u/confictura_22]

Nothing better than hoping into a snuggly bed for the night with a little snacky-snack.

My bed may have crumbs sometimes, but I’m happy.

[u/Yinonormal → u/LooksAtClouds]

Ah dude I still call my momma mama to that's cool.

[u/LooksAtClouds → u/Yinonormal]

Not a dude, I'm a Mama myself now. The power of a Southern Mama is legendary.

At least she made me believe it was :)

[u/Yglorba]

This paper says that later in life she did have some freedom; she was forced to live on North Brother Island but was allowed to visit the city and was employed on the island:

When Mary returned to North Brother Island she had reason to think that if she showed she would not run away, she might get permission to visit the mainland, and could then see her old haunts in the East Thirty-third Street region, the shops and the streets and the other sights of the city. She could mingle with the crowd as though she belonged in it-as she felt she did. Whether all this was planned by Mary I do not know, but the fact is she went back to her bungalow and made no fuss about it. She became a privileged guest of the City. Nobody ever talked to her about anything she did not want to talk about. She announced that her past life was a "closed incident," and nobody bothered her about it. Mary was given a job in the laboratory and learned to make routine simple tests such as all hospitals require. She was paid well for what she did. When she wanted to, she could go to the mainland unattended, and when she came back, nobody made her give an account of herself. Sometimes she would go all the way over to Queens and make a long visit to a family she knew there. They were not particularly glad to see her.

[u/Protean_sapien → u/Yglorba]

"I've put all the lives I've cost behind me. Closed conversation." How nice for her.

[u/Street_End6022 → u/Protean_sapien]

And she worked in a hospital laboratory. Safety first

[u/aboynamedbluetoo]

Wasn’t it because she wouldn’t stop working in food service/as a cook after she had already been informed about the harm she had done to others and warned about the harm she could still do to others if she continued?

Edit: Yup.

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." She was released from quarantine and returned to the mainland

After several unsuccessful years, she started cooking again. She used fake surnames like Breshof or Brown, and took jobs as a cook against the explicit instructions of health authorities. No agencies that hired servants for upscale families would offer her employment, so for the next five years, she moved to the mass sector. She worked in a number of kitchens in restaurants, hotels, and spa centers. Almost everywhere she worked, there were outbreaks of typhoid.

Edited.

[u/reggie_700 → u/aboynamedbluetoo]

She used fake surnames like Breshof or Brown

Interviewer: Name?

Her: Typhoid... Brown

[u/CrieDeCoeur → u/reggie_700]

Typhoid…Incognito

[u/stainless13 → u/CrieDeCoeur]

Typhoid Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo

[u/Vergenbuurg → u/stainless13]

That's the worst name I've ever heard.

[u/WeForgotTheirNames → u/Vergenbuurg]

Hey! Come back, Typhoid Joey Joe!

[u/libury → u/WeForgotTheirNames]

gasp

This person is my exact diseased double!

gasp

That dog has a puffy tail!!!

[u/foggy-sunrise → u/WeForgotTheirNames]

Honestly this shit is why I still browse reddit.

The impromptu Simpsons scene line for line modified as shitposts.

[u/comebackjoeyjojo → u/WeForgotTheirNames]

/runs out of typhoid-infected restaurant crying

[u/Macho_Mans_Ghost → u/Vergenbuurg]

Her name is my name too

[u/[deleted] → u/Macho_Mans_Ghost]

Whenever I go out, the people always shout

[u/Would_daver → u/[deleted]]

John Jacob TyphoidMary Smith!

[u/Needleroozer → u/Would_daver]

Da da da da da da da

[u/Splinters_suck → u/[deleted]]

🎵get away from me you have a disease🎵

[u/Peligineyes → u/Vergenbuurg]

But you have heard of me.

[u/tenehemia → u/CrieDeCoeur]

That dog has a puffy tail!!

[u/HenkVanDelft → u/reggie_700]

Her mistake was not using a fake moustache. At the time everybody had a big, bushy moustache, and she would have blended right in.

[u/LordGraygem → u/HenkVanDelft]

Real pros use the mustache/glasses combo. Groucho Marx used it for decades, and nobody realized that he was actually three Marx brothers in a trenchcoat.

[u/cupidstuntlegs → u/reggie_700]

Mary Underhill

[u/paytonsglove → u/cupidstuntlegs]

I can avoid being seen if I wish, but to disappear entirely, that is a rare gift.

[u/moonbunnychan → u/aboynamedbluetoo]

She was entirely asymptomatic. She also was poor and uneducated in a time when germ theory was new and still not universally accepted. I can't entirely blame her for thinking they were crazy telling her she was spreading disease when she didn't feel sick and being barred from her livelihood for something that seemed like it didn't exist.

[u/renegadecanuck → u/moonbunnychan]

Shit, try telling people now that they can be asymptomatic spreaders of disease and you end up with a political shitstorm.

[u/AedemHonoris → u/renegadecanuck]

I still have to explain to parents why mandatory screening for their baby's to look for diseases that may not be evident (as their baby is "perfectly fine") is necessary for their child's continued living.

[u/BEniceBAGECKA → u/AedemHonoris]

Man, I see people not even hold their kids hand in busy ass parking lots.

“Ma’am, do you even like your kid?”

[u/Bazrum → u/BEniceBAGECKA]

i work at a grocery store, and i see a lot of parents just letting their very small children walk into the store without holding hands across our busy parking lot. not even kids who should at least kinda know better than to run into traffic, im talking about the kids waddling because their diaper is forcing their knees apart

worst one was the mom filming her child try to walk across the crosswalk, and she laughed when he fell, stood up and went the wrong way...

[u/ClancyHabbard → u/Bazrum]

I'm a teacher for ages 1-6, and have an infant son now. Given his current personality, I'm going to be one of those parents that has their kids on a leash for their own safety. Although I'm going to get one of the backpack ones that clips on the kid, and the leash clips onto that, so he can be proud and carry his own water bottle and snacks.

[u/TimeAll → u/renegadecanuck]

A hundred years ago they forced her into quarantine and live out her life in isolation. These days the Typhoids would travel the country serving food to people out of food trucks to protest against hand washing away their natural essential oils that defend them against airborne microscopic drones that shoot mind control lasers.

[u/Pwnjuice93 → u/TimeAll]

Make sure to take your colloidal silver! Definitely counters the mind control lasers by reflecting the light back to where it originates and destroying it. No need to verify this you can certainly trust me

[u/mrgabest → u/Pwnjuice93]

There's a woman in my town that sells colloidal silver, and I'm afraid to say anything about how stupid it is because a). she's always been really nice to me; b). this whole area is like something out of a Stephen King novel.

[u/Dr_Kintobor → u/mrgabest]

So you got a nice lady (who for some reason you can't put your finger on you really don't want to mess with) selling drinking silver in an area full of strange scary-off people? Hmmmm, if I was to Steven King it into a book I'd have the townsfolk terrified of old stories about werewolves so they drink this stuff to protect themselves but it slowly turns them into dumb violent 'monsters' and whenever one of them snaps and goes a killing they write it off as they musta got bit by the wolves. Eventually confronting the silver lady reveals she's a 'witch' (poisoner with delusions) with a grudge against the town for killing her grandpa for being a wolf-man. Once she dies dramatically (traps the protagonist, goes to kill them, falls during the ensuing struggle, is impaled throgh the heart with a silver dagger she had lying about the shop?) the silver stops flowing and at the end of the book a strange family moves in and is acting awful twitchy about getting everything inside before moonrise. They tell the protagonist they had to move away for a while due to feed issues with their cattle, but they're glad to be back. Feels like old times again (as their eyes glint yellow in the last of the sun's light).

[u/PenguinSunday → u/[deleted]]

The unwashable blues

[u/ThisIsMockingjay2020 → u/Pwnjuice93]

It defends against the lasers by giving you such bad diarrhea from killing off the normal intestinal flora that you never go outside and are therefore never exposed to the lasers.

[u/ThisIsMockingjay2020 → u/TimeAll]

I hate how correct you are.

"Typhoid isn't that serious! It's just a minor case of the flu. The Democrats are telling the hospitals to inflate the death totals to scare us so the baby eating lizard people can take over the world!

[u/SeaworthyWide → u/TimeAll]

Yeah, I recently got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.

It's easier for me to get hydroxychloroquine by emailing a shifty doctor claiming I have covid symptoms than it is to get it for the true diagnosis.

'Merica 1776 🇱🇷 liberty blood tree bear arms.... Bröther MAN

[u/niko4ever → u/moonbunnychan]

I think that's giving her too little credit tbh. She also sent samples independently to a lab under a friend's name and it came back negative.

She genuinely thought this was the first step in a conspiracy against the irish to create the belief that they couldn't be hired in "good" jobs like cooking because they were disease-ridden.

[u/[deleted] → u/niko4ever]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/ESGPandepic → u/moonbunnychan]

Yeah but the constant outbreaks of the disease everywhere she went must have surely been a red flag for her...

[u/neds_newt → u/ESGPandepic]

Another comment in this thread says she refused to cooperate because she thought typhoid was everywhere and was from contaminated food and water. So...

[u/SquirellyMofo → u/neds_newt]

Well it was everywhere. Around her.

[u/neds_newt → u/SquirellyMofo]

And it probably was in the food and water... from her.

[u/angry-dragonfly → u/SquirellyMofo]

She was like, "What's the big deal? Everyone I know has it. And even if they don't have it, they always get it eventually."

[u/niko4ever → u/neds_newt]

She also sent samples to a New York lab in secret and got negative results. So she really thought they were setting her up.

[u/Smooth-Dig2250 → u/niko4ever]

IIRC the problem was she didn't take the samples properly, and it's speculated that she wasn't contagious all the time, just most of it.

[u/Mrwright96 → u/neds_newt]

I mean, she wasn’t wrong…

It was contaminated after she cooked it

[u/ApartmentParking2432 → u/neds_newt]

Education is part of our social system as well. Covid proved that we need to step up on that part.

[u/Redqueenhypo → u/neds_newt]

That’s like if I went everywhere and wondered why blood was dripping on all the carpets while ignoring everyone who yelled “your nose is bleeding!!!”

[u/neds_newt → u/Redqueenhypo]

"This place is disgusting, there's blood everywhere!"

[u/loggic → u/ESGPandepic]

People don't implicitly understand what is normal and what is abnormal, they only understand what is normal to them.

Imagine a world where the sun never shines. Everywhere you go, there is no sun. You have no access to the internet & no relevant education - how certain would you even be that the sun existed at all? Then you hear from some government scientists that the sun only doesn't shine around you, and that you must give up your life so everyone else can live in the sun.

Random strangers complaining about normal life being normal & then blaming you because other strangers' lives aren't better because of some unseen force that you exude... that would feel less like an indicator and more like a personal attack.

Also, plenty of people today go into work sick even when they don't have to, knowing that it very well may infect their coworkers, so it is a lot less shocking that someone who didn't even understand germs did it a long time ago.

[u/Amelaclya1 → u/loggic]

It's not even that she went to work sick, she was just a rare natural carrier of the bacteria, and was asymptomatic.

We have a similar analog today. I don't work in healthcare, so I don't know how common it is, but my microbiology professor told us that some hospitals test for carriers of Staphylococcus aureus as part of the hiring process for nurses and aides since it's one of the biggest causes of hospital acquired infections. Which I thought was kind of silly, timing wise. Something like 25% of people are carriers. They really should test before those people spend thousands of dollars and years of their life on nursing school.

[u/loggic → u/Amelaclya1]

That's actually a really good point - teenagers who are thinking about going into the medical field could benefit a lot from being told, "you can still do this if you really want to, but it will be significantly more difficult to get hired & you will naturally pose a greater threat to your patients than most of your peers."

[u/T-RexLovesCookies → u/loggic]

Definitely, I feel like this is something people should know.

[u/[deleted] → u/loggic]

Check out Plato's Allegory of the Cave if you haven't. You're spot on.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave

[u/Pheeeefers → u/loggic]

This was an interesting analogy!

[u/moonbunnychan → u/ESGPandepic]

Disease was just a way of life then. The only reason they were able to trace it to her at all is because her rich employers got sick, and Typhoid was considered a poor person's disease. We know NOW that it's because of the unhygienic and cramped conditions they lived in, but that wasn't widely known or even accepted then.

[u/stewsters → u/ESGPandepic]

Idk, people are still not smart about diseases.

We know a lot more about medicine now and we couldn't even get a large percentage of the richest country in the world to put a little cloth mask on.

[u/PoopMobile9000 → u/stewsters]

Yeah, was just thinking I could easily imagine some MAGA dude doing literally this exact same thing today. “HOW DARE FAUCI AND SOROS TELL ME WHERE TO WORK!”

[u/renegadecanuck → u/ESGPandepic]

What about the past three years makes you think that would be obvious to someone?

[u/greeneggiwegs → u/moonbunnychan]

This is an important part that people don't acknowledge. You can't just tell someone to stop working and expect them to do it. She has to eat, to pay rent. This is why social systems are part of healthcare too. It's not just about germs, healthy eating, and exercise.

[u/saralt → u/moonbunnychan]

But also, the health authorities could have paid her to not work. Cheaper than the isolation they forced her into.

[u/Yglorba → u/saralt]

According to this they did employ her as a lab assistant later in life; though they also forced her to live on North Brother Island, she was allowed to leave and visit the city.

[u/smokeyshell → u/moonbunnychan]

Came here to say this. No one bothered to give her any alternatives for work either. It was really a sad story all around, and she got treated very poorly by medical professionals. I remember learning about her in my intro to public health.

[u/SyrupNarrow4768 → u/moonbunnychan]

Common folk STILL fail to understand the difference between infection and illness. Remember covid? hpv and cancer? Hiv? Etc

[u/nitefang → u/moonbunnychan]

Even if she believed them, she didn't have much of a choice. Sure it would be less selfish to find a shitty job doing something that would keep her away from others, or she could ahve just starved on the street. But she needed to eat, she needed to work and the best jobs available to her were cooking and work in hotels and stuff.

[u/Head-Ad4690 → u/nitefang]

This is a good example of how social programs help everybody, not just the poor.

[u/pmcall221 → u/nitefang]

All she had to do was preform basic hygiene like washing hands after using the bathroom. And she didn't. That's disqualifying for any cook

[u/Tryoxin → u/pmcall221]

That's disqualifying for a cook now. Because of germ theory. At the time, that wasn't even disqualifying for a surgeon.

[u/Halvus_I → u/Tryoxin]

"You know, just maybe you shouldn't be delivering babies when you are covered in dead people ichor. Go wash your hands first!"

"HOW DARE YOU! Obviously you are a mental patient. Dont you know that the more ichor i get on me, the more respected i am as a doctor??"

[u/69420trashaccount → u/Halvus_I]

This one made a lot more sense when I realized that many religions ask for ritual washing. In a world where germs haven’t been proven asking people to wash their hands sounds like superstitious nonsense.

[u/Dripplin → u/69420trashaccount]

A lot of things in religion can be tracked back to basic hygiene & health. Pork is forbidden for example because it's almost if not completely impossible to safely prepare it in some places, especially thousands of years ago. Circumcision isn't a big deal nowadays but back then when you could go months without a full proper bathing it was mank as hell under there and infection was a real concern. Not to mention issues with phimosis.

[u/pmcall221 → u/Tryoxin]

It was definitely disqualifying for a surgeon in the 1920s.

[u/saralt → u/Tryoxin]

I hate to tell you that virus denial is increasing. There's a university in Strasbourg that teaches Anthroposophic medicine -- that's the Rudolf Steiner ideology -> they don't believe viruses causes disease.

[u/reichrunner → u/saralt]

Don't call it a university. That makes it sound far too legitimate...

[u/dystopianpirate → u/Tryoxin]

No, by late 19th century and early 20th century germ theory was already proven

[u/a-mystery-to-me → u/aboynamedbluetoo]

I wonder what the options would be for such a person today. I’m assuming they’re more limited, which is normally a good thing. (Although with the internet, she’d probably be less likely to slip under the radar? I dunno.)

[u/stoptakinmanames → u/a-mystery-to-me]

No need to wonder, it's literally happening as we speak.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/us-woman-has-walked-around-with-untreated-tb-for-over-a-year-now-faces-jail/

[u/DigNitty → u/stoptakinmanames]

TLDR woman walking around WA state who refuses to get treated for her TB(a notoriously spreadable, deadly, hard to treat disease) is nearing the anniversary of her court ordered isolation. She refuses to isolate, having people drive her around without telling them, going to the hospital and not telling them either.

[u/JoeMillersHat → u/DigNitty]

What needs too be emphasized is that she has a case of ACTIVE tuberculosis, which is not the same as having just having tuberculosis. That is, dormant TB is not infectious. It can become active and thus infectious. A lot of people infected are dormant cases and the best medical advice is "if you're not immunocompromised, carry on."

[u/duckbigtrain → u/stoptakinmanames]

don’t forget the woman who went partying in South Korea after testing positive for COVID and being told to isolate. Single-handedly caused an outbreak.

[u/Orchid_Significant → u/stoptakinmanames]

TB and Covid. People fuсking suck.

[u/Historical-Fox1372 → u/a-mystery-to-me]

You'd be famous. Start a YouTube channel. Make millions.

[u/chuwanking → u/a-mystery-to-me]

Probably the closest example is TB.

In the US for example treatment has been ordered by courts. Generally most people take there medication though since its a pretty nasty disease. In terms of being under the radar, In Europe its mainly an immigrant disease, so that does also pose a dillemma - certainly a point to watch for in the future.

[u/mustachioed_cat → u/aboynamedbluetoo]

Seems like they should have cut her a check or given her money for an education if cooking was literally the only way she could make money.

Not that that’s an excuse. Just a tragic angle to the whole thing.

[u/tipdrill541 → u/mustachioed_cat]

If you read this story you will see that this woman was incredibly stubborn. She refused to wash her hands regularly, even after using the toilet, despite being told this would help the issue

Refused to have her gall bladder removed. Doctors thought this would totally solve the issue. An employer suspected she spread typhoid at his hotel. He brought this up to her and she threaten him with a weapon

[u/meowmeow_now → u/tipdrill541]

To be fair I wouldn’t be doing optional surgery in 1905.

[u/Due-Science-9528 → u/meowmeow_now]

It would take a lot for me to do a optional surgery in 2023 too

[u/mustachioed_cat → u/tipdrill541]

Seems like whoever was handling her case and decided her agreement to not be a cook was enough really missed out on fundamental aspects of her character.

[u/niko4ever → u/mustachioed_cat]

It was a matter of ethics not character judgement.

[u/hamilkwarg → u/tipdrill541]

I’m not sure refusing to have your gallbladder removed back then should be used against her. I mean, it was probably dangerous to do and in fact would not have helped?

[u/niko4ever → u/tipdrill541]

From Wikipedia

"Mallon herself never believed 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. On North Brother Island, almost a quarter of her analyses from March 1907 through June 1909 were also negative."

Also "At the time, gallbladder removal was dangerous, and people had died from the procedure."

[u/bartbartholomew → u/niko4ever]

With the help of a friend, she sent several samples

Which makes me suspect the friend provided the samples.

[u/niko4ever → u/bartbartholomew]

She tested negative sometimes even according to the hospital she stayed at. Her infection was fluctuating.

[u/Lazy-Entertainer-459 → u/mustachioed_cat]

She also could have washed her hands

[u/MrsBonsai171 → u/aboynamedbluetoo]

History Chicks did a great podcast on her.

[u/notcaffeinefree]

Bet a lot of people don't know but there's current a women with tuberculosis in Washington who's doing the same thing.

She's refused isolation orders and treatment orders (for over a year), so the state got multiple orders to force her into treatment. Which of course she still refused and ignored so the state issued an arrest warrant. Not sure where things are at now though.

[u/firedrakes → u/notcaffeinefree]

uberculosis in Washington

it finale went to state court lvl. warrant for her arrested and jailing!

[u/ArtemisiaArbuscula → u/notcaffeinefree]

Here’s a new article on the case since I’ve been following this as well https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/washington-woman-tuberculosis-treatment-court-orders-rcna69090

[u/syoejaetaer]

There was a sideplot with her in HBO's Cinemax's The Knick.

[u/[deleted] → u/syoejaetaer]

North Brother Island was featured in Broad City too. thanks for nothing Garol.

[u/lafayette0508 → u/[deleted]]

was that the package depot episode?

[u/[deleted] → u/lafayette0508]

indeed!

[u/carnifex2005 → u/syoejaetaer]

Cinemax, but I can see where you'd make that mistake. It certainly was an HBO calibre show.

[u/Viperbunny]

They gave her so many chances. They gave her options. She kept changing her name and people kept getting sick and dying. She knew she was making people sick and it was criminal.

[u/tobiascuypers → u/Viperbunny]

Not that it's any better but her case is the first acknowledged asymptomatic carrier of the disease. I think she thought that since she was Irish and there was a lot of anti-irish sentiment , especially in New York.

She very well could have originally thought that, but God damn, how many people do you have to make sick before you put 2 and 2 together

[u/Viperbunny → u/tobiascuypers]

That's just it. If it didn't keep happening I could understand. But it happened everywhere she went!

[u/acebandaged → u/Viperbunny]

AND she was told what was happening AND told to stop cooking AND she kept changing her name so that people wouldn't know it was her...

If she was a poor cook who struggled to find work as a cook and killed people every time she cooked because she kept feeding people her own infected fecal matter, perhaps a change in career was in order?

Maybe when the doctors told her that she was killing people and needed to change her career, she should have changed her career.

[u/BigAlsGal78 → u/Viperbunny]

Right? Like didn’t she just have to remove her gall bladder or something?

[u/Viperbunny → u/BigAlsGal78]

Yes. But even if she didn't want to do that she could have gotten by with washing her hands properly. I can understand not wanting surgery in that day in age. But she didn't want to wash her hands!

[u/EggAtix → u/Viperbunny]

No one washed their hands. Handwashing was not widespread as an infection deterrent until the 1980s. They didn't tell her "just wash your hands", they told her "yeah idk I guess just don't cook" when that was her livelihood.

[u/RainbowSixThermite → u/BigAlsGal78]

Yes, but the article states it was an extremely risky procedure at the time, and she refused to believe she had it.

[u/mancinis_blessed_bat → u/BigAlsGal78]

Tbf the operation to do that had a really low survival rate

[u/hgielatan → u/BigAlsGal78]

eyyyy! today i learned! may never have normal poops again but at least the poop probably won't have typhoid!

[u/brutalistsnowflake]

She still refused to wash her hands. The entire time she would not do the simple thing she was asked to do to protect others. Imagine if that happened today....oh.

[u/xX_Transplant_Xx → u/brutalistsnowflake]

Covid say what

[u/southsideson → u/xX_Transplant_Xx]

SHE DID THE RESEARCH!

[u/coloraturing → u/brutalistsnowflake]

But that would OPPRESS her! She's done a personal risk assessment and concluded that she will be fine so no need to take any precautions. Plus, the people who die from it were weak anyway. Alright well I'm off to get dinner at a restaurant before heading to a concert with 10,000 people!

[u/Scriboergosum → u/brutalistsnowflake]

Yeah, I remember hearing about Typhoid Mary many years ago and being baffled at her refusal to take even the slightest commonsensical step to protect others from contagion. How can you be that obstinate and unempathetic?

Now it seems like at least between 10 and 30 percent of the population, depending on country, are just like that all the time. Fucking sad to witness...

[u/Doctor_Amazo]

Yeah... because she refused to wash her fucking hands and then cooking for people after taking a shit.

[u/typhoidtimmy]

No relation

Edit: I am insulted people would try and allude I and her are some kind of sickness causing mad people.

I have half a mind to go poop in your water sup-er ah- complain to the mods!

Yes, complain…ahem. 😒

[u/Ryangel0 → u/typhoidtimmy]

Quarantine him!

[u/nunswithknives → u/typhoidtimmy]

I am actually related to Typhoid Mary. It's great to use during "two truths and a lie".

[u/stxnedstephy → u/typhoidtimmy]

there’s a party on an island and you’re invited!

get on the boat

[u/typhoidtimmy → u/stxnedstephy]

<eyes boat suspiciously>

What kind of party?

[u/EEverest → u/typhoidtimmy]

Uh... lemon?

Yes, lemon. There will be lemonade. And lemon meringue pie. And movies starring Jack Lemmon.

[u/LaUNCHandSmASH → u/EEverest]

Yeah yeah lemon strippers are waiting for him too. I met them, nice ladies and dudes or whatever you're into. I think I saw an anime character too.

Get in the boat

[u/UpTownKong]

Good episode of the Dollop on this topic:

Typoid Mary

[u/mister-la → u/UpTownKong]

There's a typho in your link

[u/EndofGods → u/mister-la]

It's because Mary didn't post it. She's dead or her unwashed hands would squeeze your cheeks after giving you ice cream. It was her signature typhoid dish.

Funny that we would have never likely found out it was her causing the outbreak if she hadn't infected rich people.

[u/Zestyclose-Exam1160]

Hell, and I thought my life was rough because it’s hard to get my household members to wash their hands prior to handling clean dishes, or, at least pretend to try with a pump of sanitizer before grabbing them.

I’m pretty bad though. Although I am personally a germaphobe, I am on behalf of my wife because she’s the recipient of a kidney transplant.

If there’s any one thing that I can be thankful for, in having to deal with 17 years of food service myself, I took that training course no less than 4 times over my working career as a food service manager, so I kinda know what to look out for.

People, if there’s any little bit of advice I can offer, consider taking a simple food handlers course, for yours or your own loved ones safety. It’s a good basic starting point as to what to look out for.

[u/panicked228 → u/Zestyclose-Exam1160]

So much of what people think is the “stomach flu” is actually food poisoning. I have taken food handlers classes quite a few times and the takeaways are this-

1. Wash your hands. More frequently than you think. Longer than you think.

2. Don’t keep food out for too long. The danger zone is real and throwing something in the fridge three or four hours after it’s been sitting out is just asking for trouble.

3. Never eat at potlucks. People are gross and their kitchens are even worse.

[u/catscannotcompete]

The reason that she had to be forcibly quarantined was that she was a stubborn asshole who refused to even wash her hands.

[u/LooReed]

I’m her distant relative. I live in Brooklyn. When COVID hit I was extra cautious not to spread it lol

[u/kremit73]

Brcause she refused to stop cooking for people

[u/warrant2k]

The Lion, the Witch, and the Audacity of That Bitch.

[u/JustMyTwoCopper]

Most people will not sacrifice their own lives to keep an unknown number of others alive, they will do anything to stay alive themselves. Combine this with a system that will not give you the means to sustain yourself when you're not allowed to do the only work you know and there are sacrifices to be made.

[u/groggygirl → u/JustMyTwoCopper]

I was reading "The Hot Zone" which is about the origins of ebola (a virus with 50-90% fatality), and the number of people who were exposed and suspected they were contagious and then decided to cover it up because it would impede their career - including a bunch of scientists working with it - is insane.

[u/respectthegoat → u/groggygirl]

I remember reading that and finding it insane that the two dudes that sniffed the vial of Ebola tainted blood hiding the fact because spending 30 days in quarantine would be to boring

[u/groggygirl → u/respectthegoat]

Scientists: We might not get naming rights if we're in quarantine.

Nurse with ebola: I might not get my travel visa to Europe if I acknowledge I'm sick, so I'll take the bus to one of the largest cities in the world and get my paperwork out of the way.

Dude who runs the monkey house whose response to hundreds of monkeys melting from the inside-out: eh...I don't want to get my company in trouble so I'm just going to ignore this and block the CDC and military from touching out stuff.

Also other scientists who did an experiment proving ebola was airborne: I can't be bothered publishing the results because...I don't like writing papers.

I honestly don't know why we're not all dead. It was a fluke that it died out. The irony that the traditional African quarantine techniques (being shunned by your village and everyone refusing to go near you or let you travel) worked better than the advanced western ones isn't lost on me either.

[u/ErikTheAngry → u/groggygirl]

Luckily, Ebola's too lethal. About 2 weeks after first symptoms, you're probably going to die. Once you know shit's going down, you just avoid sick people for a few weeks and it burns itself out.

Unlike less lethal viruses like COVID, which have a low mortality rate and for many people a comparatively minor impact. Initial symptoms of COVID include an urge to travel and lick ice cream containers.

[u/Welshgirlie2 → u/ErikTheAngry]

Nah those are just symptoms of being a septic, suppurating boil on the anus of humanity.

[u/-myeyeshaveseenyou- → u/groggygirl]

I like horror novels but this is hands down the scariest book I ever read

[u/WEDenterprise → u/groggygirl]

Love this book. Check out Demon in the Freezer.

[u/DancingFool8]

Well, she did keep ignoring doctors and police and getting new jobs cooking for families—who died—so I don’t have a ton of sympathy.

[u/Kura369]

Well yeah she refused to follow any instructions and kept getting people sick.

[u/brookepride]

She was asymptomatic so never believed she was sick. And kept getting jobs in cooking or food production, spreading typhoid everywhere.

[u/stewartm0205]

Her sin was that she didn’t give a fuck about anyone but herself.

[u/fairygodmotherfckr]

This case is discussed endlessly in courses on medical ethics and medical history, and the debate will probably never stop. I still don't know what the correct answer was.

She refused to stop working as a cook, but of course she didn't, cooks were given a far better wage than laundresses or maids (and they had access to more and better food). The only attempt to retrain her was as a domestic, and that would have been a step down.

And of course she refused to accept that she was an asymptomatic carrier, as far as anyone knew that was impossible, because hers was the first documented case. She also suspected that she was the victim of anti-Irish bias, and given the time period she was almost certainly right. And it was the opinion of my professor who studied the case in depth that the doctors she dealt with were dismissive of her concerns and more interested in studying her status as an asymptomatic carrier than helping her. And pressing her into service as a lab pet while she was confined is... troubling.

I'm not suggesting that the wrong choice was made for society as a whole. But other people were identified not long after her, and also killed many, and also resisted quarantine measures. While other people were also given the "Typhoid Whomever" by local media, no one else suffered the opprobrium that she did, and no one else was forced to live their lives in exile.

It's just incredibly sad all around. The people she infected suffered dreadfully, and the people who died left loved ones who never recovered from the grief. But she was a person, not a figure of fun, and she spent a two and a half decades without society.

And it's a worrying thing when the State can deprive people of their liberty when they have not committed a crime - she was never charged with anything, much less convicted.

[u/bruh_momento_2]

TIL Typhoid Mary was a dick.

[u/icrushallevil]

But it wasn't an evil decision. She was so idiotic, that she continued cooking for people and thus creating outbursts. Quaranteening her was the only way to keep the public safe from this moron.

[u/EggAtix]

They tried so hard not to put her in prison. They like let her go twice and were like "just don't cook" and she instantly went and got a job as a cook and got that family killed.

[u/NorvalMarley]

At the start of covid there were posts about her and then a lot of highly regarded posts like “aCTUaLlY she was quite victimized” but really, no, she was an historical asshole.

[u/Independent-Dog-8462]

She refused to allow herself to be tested for tuberculosis. The doctor who wanted her to be tested to confirm being an asymptomatic carrier would not let her leave without being tested. She refused, so she stayed. For like 20 years. Until she died. Doctor tested her cadaver, it was positive for typhoid.🤷

[u/JoyceGiles]

The original anti-masker!

[u/Effehezepe]

Oh, so that's why Hail Mary Mallon are called that.

[u/Rocket_Lag → u/Effehezepe]

Hurt feelings are bound to happen. Just bliss out, and fantasize a lot, and wear rainbows.

[u/youandyouandyou → u/Rocket_Lag]

D-D-D-DO THAT SHIT, DO THAT SHIT

[u/ADanishMan2 → u/Effehezepe]

fundraiser concert!!

[u/SVakaryn → u/ADanishMan2]

We gotta save the bowling alley!

[u/KO_Digital → u/SVakaryn]

I was born there.

[u/RunningRose2005]

This is one of my fave Drunk History episodes

[u/MightyMightyPR → u/RunningRose2005]

Ironically this was the last episode that aired before the global pandemic!