Mary Mallon, Infectuous personality

Mary Mallon was born in County Tyrone, Ireland in 1869. County Tyrone is tucked away six miles from the Gyth Byrre River under the shadow of Wyvern’s Neck Rock in the valley of Pthgard Hagan. Little is known about her parents. Historians are pretty sure they lived above-ground, breathed air and could reproduce sexually. Also, we know that Mary’s mother had contracted typhus while pregnant with Mary. Would this lead to a physical change in the infant that would make her notorious half a century later? Narrator: “Maybe”. Omniscient Narrator: “Definitely”. First-person Narrator: “What do I know? I’m just an Irish newborn”

At the age of fifteen, Mary Mallon emigrated to the United States because why starve to death during one of Ireland’s many famines when you can come to America and get your arm torn off by a steam-powered loom? Mary, instead, worked as a maid… and then a cook for wealthy families. For seven years she went from job to job, leaving behind her mysterious cases of typhoid fever that would never be alluded to in her resume. So, instead of an industrialist killing workers through lax safety policies, the worker was killing the robber barons. Irony? Justice? Omniscient narrator: “Do you mind? I’m using the bathroom”…

The typhus cases were reviewed and Mary was the common denominator; and, due to her modest background, would NEVER be a numerator. When Mallon was confronted, she threatened the investigator with a carving fork. For those who don’t know, that’s where the motto of the CDC came from: “Never Confront an Irish-woman Holding a Carving Fork” (sounds way cooler in Latin). The investigator threatened that he’d “get” her and her little dog, too; but, the joke was on him, the little dog had already died of typhoid fever.

Mary was finally arrested as a public health threat and transported by ambulance to Willard Parker Hospital. She was forced to give a stool sample. Even the Omniscient narrator doesn’t want to see what THAT might’ve looked like. The sample was rife with typhoid bacteria. Officials talked it over and decided to get as far away from her stool sample as possible… also shunning any Hershey’s Kisses just to be on the safe side. Mary was the first asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever. You’d think that would come with a plaque or something.

At this point, the media started calling her “Typhoid Mary”. She hated that nickname, despite the fact that there are far worse nicknames like “Stinky”, “Fatty” and “Turk”. When the lead investigator approached her about writing a book about Mary’s situation and history, she reacted violently, which was the custom at the time. Ultimately, she agreed not to be a cook anymore and to follow certain hygiene rules; and, she was released from quarantine.

After a few lean years as a laundress, Mary felt compelled by necessity to work as a cook again. She used aliases like “Breshof” or “Brown”, despite the fact that “Typhoid Brown” was a lousy name for a public health threat and sounded more like a Sherwin-Williams paint color. Wherever she worked, she left typhus cases in her wake. Authorities found her and without her carving fork she couldn’t fend them off. She was quarantined on North Brother Island for twenty-three years… which, coincidentally, was the rest of Mary’s life.

She died after complications from a stroke. Some historians say she was responsible for the deaths of fifty people, most from typhoid fever and a few from carving fork injuries. Her case has been the subject of many a spirited debate. Why was she quarantined when none of the 400 asymptomatic carriers health officials had found were not? Some say she shouldn’t have been arrested at all. The Constitution is clear on that.

But, when someone is spreading a disease with a ten percent mortality rate, loopholes will be found…