Due to the popularity of films about zombie apocalypses, even people far from medicine today are familiar with the term "patient zero". This is the very first peddler of infection, because of which the epidemic begins, turning the world into a branch of hell.
This term was introduced into science after the incident with Mary Mallon, an Irish cook who did not wash her hands and nearly killed several New York districts at the beginning of the 20th century. We know her under a different, more famous name - Typhoid Mary.
Wonderful birth and ordinary life
The story of the most famous carrier of typhoid fever began even before its birth and was like the plot of the film "Blade". It was in Ireland in 1869, when Mary’s mother fell ill with typhus during pregnancy, and not only did not die, but also gave birth to a completely healthy-looking baby. Researchers believe that Mary was already infected then, but unlike Blade, the baby did not become a superhero. On the contrary, albeit unwittingly, but it caused the death of many people.
The girl grew very strong and at the age of fifteen, she immigrated with her family to the USA. There, the girl quickly got used to it and instead of getting married, as it was then decided, she decided to build her own American dream.
By the age of twenty, she had been a cook at the home of a New York rich family, but something immediately went wrong - one by one, the hosts began to get seriously ill. Nobody could blame Mary for anything - Mary did not have any motive to poison employers, and she seemed to be quite healthy and could hardly infect anyone by accident. Nevertheless, the fact was on the face - patients with typhoid fever began to appear in the city immediately after her arrival. Considering it a bad sign, the local expelled the girl out.
A year later, in 1901, Mary moved to Manhattan. Less than a week later, as a family for which she had just started working, she became ill with fever and diarrhea, and the laundress who was serving for them died at all. After the Irish woman went to a local lawyer, and again, almost all of his household picked up typhoid fever.
Good Christian Mary Mallon tried to help the sick. She cared for them, but naturally, from her help everyone only got worse. As a result, all efforts were in vain - from 1900 to 1907, she had to change as many as seven employers.
Dirty hands and greedy landlord
©Depositphotos / Typhoid Mary in the version of the Broadway production
The year 1906 was fatal for Typhoid Mary. In early August, Mallon found a place in the kitchen of the family of a wealthy banker from New York, Charles Henry Warren. Wanting to enjoy the last summer days, the Warren couple rented a mansion on Long Island and took a bunch of children and relatives with them. Capable cook, too, went.
At the very end of August, a child fell ill with a banker, and a week later more than half of the family fell ill — this time Mary did not play the nurse, and immediately went to look for a new job.
Perhaps she would have continued her "typhoid campaign" if not for the property owner of the summer home, George Thompson, who was very concerned about the state of affairs. It was obvious that the house in which someone had picked up a dangerous contagion would now be very problematic to hand over - suddenly potential tenants would be afraid that the infection came, for example, from a source of drinking water.
To understand what really happened and to convince future customers of home security, Thompson hired ambulance engineer George Soper. By a happy coincidence, he also understood something in typhoid fever - on duty, Soper had already worked with similar cases.
Soper took up the investigation and studied all the outbreaks of typhoid in the state over several years. Very soon, he figured out that all cases of diseases in decent wealthy families occurred at the time when Mary Mallon worked as a cook for them.
Unfortunately, no matter how quick the sanitary engineer worked, Mary and her typhoid fever were faster.
When Soper sought out the contagious cook, she had already managed to get into the house on Park Avenue - as a result, two servants were taken to the hospital, and the master's daughter died. The man tried to persuade Mary to pass tests, but she obviously did not like this request. Hot Irish woman was not shy in expressions and even rushed at him with a fork for meat, so Soper was forced to retire.
Then the New York State Department of Health decided to send Dr. Sara Josephine Baker to the negotiations with the combat lady, but Miss Mallon did not make contact with the woman doctor either. According to her, a pharmacist examined her, and he found her healthy. Despite the fact that at that time no one knew about healthy carriers of diseases, the authorities had more confidence in the arguments of doctors, and not the words of the Irish cook. As a result, Mary Mallon was arrested and taken to the prison hospital.
In the hospital, Typhoid Mary examined and found in her gallbladder a center of typhoid-like bacteria. Doctors did not come up with anything better than to offer her an operation to remove the bladder, but Mary, firmly convinced that she was right, absolutely refused to have surgery. However, she still admitted that during the work she often did not wash her hands, because she did not see any sense in it. The court found such impropriety unpardonable and sent Mallon to quarantine for three years on North Brother Island near New York.
Typhoid Island
©Depositphotos / Mary Mallon (left) in a hospital bed
Forced isolation annoyed Mary. She always complained and sincerely did not understand how to keep a “healthy” person in such conditions. Then, in June 1907, the same George Soper published an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in which Mallon certified with the cacophisticating nickname "Typhoid Mary," which later stuck to her tightly.
Such a crude nickname was quite in the spirit of the ideas of the Irish emigrants that were common at the time, considered dirty garbage and carriers of infections.
Therefore, Sooper's second meeting with Mary ended in nothing when he sailed to North Brother with a statement that he wanted to write a book about her. The offended woman simply did not listen to either the world fame or the percentage of sales of the book. The rested Irish woman spent all day in the lavatory, until the sanitary engineer hated by her did not leave.
Tired of the endless debate with Mallon doctors and representatives of the hospital administration eventually decided to release the girl from the island. However, with the condition that she, even under the fear of death, will not approach someone else's stove and will try to take all possible measures so as not to infect others. The girl swore under oath that she would comply with sanitary and epidemiological norms, and on February 19, 1910, Typhoid Mary again found herself on the mainland.
Only habits do not change
©Depositphotos / A poster urging not to act like Typhoid Mary
The uneducated former prisoner of leprosarium was one road - to the washerwomen. In addition, Mary initially really followed all the rules and did not even stutter about food service. However, washing clothes brought at times less money than cooking. Moreover, at the beginning of the 20th century, women in laundries did all the most difficult and dangerous work: fractures, burns, problems with the spine and joints were their constant companions.
Tired of the ungrateful work in the laundry, the enterprising Irish woman decided on a desperate step - she changed her name to Mary Brown and went to work as a cook again.
Unfortunately, for others, the name change did not affect Mary’s lifestyle. She still spat (sometimes literally) on hygiene and often moved from work to work, which resulted in new outbreaks of typhoid in the district. This time, the authorities knew whom to look for, but the search was complicated by the new name, Typhoid Mary. On the trail of the girl was attacked only in 1915, when the girl came to work at the Sloan hospital - there she infected another twenty-five people, one of whom died.
©Depositphotos / Mary (fourth from right) after returning to the island
March 27, 1915 she was again sent to the island of North Brother, but this time - without the right to release.
Over time, she became a local celebrity. Journalists came to her, in an interview with which Mary constantly complained about people who had condemned her to loneliness. She again refused treatment, declared her innocence and did not recognize herself as sick, but despite this, her many visitors were still forbidden to take anything from Mary’s hands.
Yet there is a blessing in disguise - since 1922, she was allowed to work as a nurse in a local laboratory, and three years later, she was promoted to laboratory assistant.
One life and fifty deaths
Nobody knows the exact number of people infected with it - only about three people who died from Mary were known for certain. However, historians believe that the deaths could be about fifty, and most of them became ill after the girl was released from the island, and she quit her job as a laundress.
Considering the fact that at the beginning of the last century everything was not very good with documentation in the American departments, it is no longer possible to establish the truth.
Typhoid Mary’s life has become a vivid example of how carelessness in relation to health can have the most deplorable results, as well as an important reminder - you should always wash your hands!
The illustrations are used in agreement with the Depositphotos photobank
Liked the article? Please click here for follow and don't forget to Upvote...