More Cool Stuff I Learned From Books

Although I had read about this in Anthony Bourdain's book Typhoid Mary, The Deadly Dinner Party repeats the story, and I thought it was so interesting.

The most famous typhoid carrier in history was Mary Mallon, who later became known as Typhoid Mary. Born in Ireland in 1869, Mary came to New York City at the age of 14 and began working as a cook. In 1906, a wealthy New Yorker developed typhoid and a sanitary engineer with the New York City Health Department began investigating the cause. He found that Mary Mallon had been the family's cook. Upon further investigation into her background, he found that in every household that Mary had worked int he past 10 years, there had been an outbreak of typhoid. When Mary was confronted, she denied that she was at fault. She was arrested and quarantined in a hospital for 3 years. After promising to never work in a cooking position again, she was released. However, Mary continued working as a cook and more outbreaks were attributed to her. In 1915, she was apprehended and confined in quarantine for the rest of her life. Mary was responsible for at least 53 cases of typhoid and 3 deaths. Although there were 349 known typhoid carriers in New York City, Mary was the only one to be confined.