Mary Mallon was a “healthy carrier” of an infectious disease, the first ever reported and observed in the New World.
But, since then, and throughout the first two decades of the 20th century, more than 100 people were added annually to the rolls of “healthy carriers” of typhoid in New-York alone.
Moreover, though she infected 47 people with typhoid fever (11 of which were members of one family and their hired help) – only 3 of her inadvertent victims died. Tony Labella, another carrier, caused the death of 5 people (of 122 he had infected).
But the nickname of this New York City, fiery Irish immigrant cook – Typhoid Mary – was widely dreaded in the early 1900s. Immune to the disease herself, she was the perfect carrier through her contaminated food.
Private investigators hired in 1906 to find the source of the epidemic failed. George Soper, a civil engineer, traced it back to 37-years old Mallon. When he confronted her with his suspicions and asked for samples of her blood and stool, she advanced on him with a carving knife. She similarly lunged with a “long kitchen knife” at policemen who...
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