Mary Mallon

Mary Mallon, better known as Typhoid Mary, was the first person in the United States identified an asymptomatic carrier of the microorganism associated with typhoid fever. She was presumed to have infected 51 people, 3 of whom died, during her job as a cook. She was twice times forcibly separated by public health authorities and died after an overall of nearly 3 decades in isolation. From 1900 to 1907, Mallon worked as a cook in the New York City area for seven families. In 1900, she worked in Mamaroneck, New York, where, within two weeks of her employment, residents developed typhoid fever. In 1901, she moved to Manhattan, where members of the family for whom she worked developed fevers and diarrhea, and the laundress died. Mallon then went to work for a lawyer; she left after seven of the eight people in that household ended up being ill. In 1906, she took a position in Oyster Bay, Long Island, and within two weeks 10 of the 11 family members were hospitalized with typhoid. She changed jobs again and similar occurred happened in three more households. She worked as a cook for the family of a wealthy New York banker, Charles Henry Warren. When the Warrens rented a house in Oyster Bay for the summer of 1906, Mallon went along too. From August 27 to September 3, 6 of the 11 people in the household came down to typhoid fever. The disease at that time was "unusual" in Oyster Bay, according to 3 medical doctors who practiced there.