What is "Typhoid Mary" about?

"Typhoid Mary", whose real name was Mary Mellen, was born in Ireland in 1869 and immigrated to the United States when she was 15 years old. At first she worked as a maid. Later, she discovered that she had a talent for cooking, so she changed her career as a chef and received a much higher salary than that of a maid. Mary was very happy with her situation.

In the summer of 1906, New York banker Warren took his family to Long Island for a summer vacation and hired Mary as a cook. At the end of August, one of Warren's daughters was the first to contract typhoid fever. Then Mrs. Warren, two maids, the gardener, and another daughter were infected. There were 11 people living in the house where they spent the summer, and 6 of them got sick.

The homeowner was deeply anxious, so he tried every means to find Sober, an engineering expert who had experience in dealing with typhoid epidemics. Sober zeroed in on Mary. He conducted a detailed investigation of Mary's work experience in the previous seven years and found that Mary had changed seven working places in the past seven years, and each working place had an outbreak of typhoid fever. There were a total of 22 cases, including one death.

Sober managed to obtain Mary's blood and feces samples to verify his inference. But it was tricky, as Sober described brilliantly: He approached Mary and "tryed to be diplomatic, but Mary reacted quickly. She grabbed a big fork and stabbed it straight at me. I He ran quickly through the long and narrow hall and escaped from the iron door."

Mary reacted violently at that time, because in her time, the concept of "healthy carrier" was still unheard of. She herself was in excellent health, and saying that she had transmitted typhoid fever to others was simply disrespectful to her. insult.

Later, Sober tried to persuade Mary through the local health official. Unexpectedly, this angered the stubborn Irish woman even more. She kicked them out and declared them "persona non grata" ".

Finally, local health officials came to the door with an ambulance and five people. This time, Mary used the big fork again. While everyone was dodging, Mary suddenly ran away. She was later found in a closet, loaded into an ambulance and taken to hospital. The scene along the way was like "an angry lion in a cage."

The hospital test results confirmed Sober's suspicion. Mary was admitted to the infectious disease ward on a small island near New York called Northside Brothers.

But Mary never believed the hospital's conclusion. Two years later she filed a complaint with the health department. In June 1909, the "New York American" published a long report about Mary. The article was very sensational and caused public lamentation. The health department was accused of infringement.

In February 1910, the local health department reached a settlement with Mary and lifted her isolation on the condition that Mary agreed not to work as a cook.

This section of the public case is concluded. In 1915, Mary had been out of isolation for five years and everyone had mostly forgotten about her. At this time, a typhoid fever broke out in a New York maternity hospital. 25 people were infected and 2 died. The health department soon found Mary, who had been renamed "Mrs. Brown," in the hospital's kitchen.

It is said that Mary returned to being a chef because she believed that she was not the source of infection. After all, being a chef made much more money. But public sympathy for Mary evaporated this time. Mary realized that she had been wronged and returned to the island honestly. Doctors used all the drugs that could treat typhoid fever on Mary in isolation, but the typhoid fever bacteria still persisted in her body. Mary gradually learned some knowledge about infectious diseases, actively cooperated with the work of the hospital, and even became a volunteer in the hospital laboratory. In 1932, Mary suffered a stroke and was paralyzed and died six years later.

Mary's experience once triggered a major debate about public health rights, and Mary's own dramatic resistance made this debate even more eye-catching. The result of the debate is that most people believe that the public's health rights should be protected first. The President of the United States was therefore authorized to declare an infectious disease-infected area to be quarantined if necessary, and this power remains in effect to this day.

Mary Mellen went down in American medical history with the nickname "Typhoid Mary." Today, Americans sometimes jokingly refer to friends who are suffering from infectious diseases as "Typhoid Mary"; because Mary Mellen in the story is always changing working places, those who frequently change jobs will also be affected by the people around them. People nicknamed her "Typhoid Mary".