He discovered the cook was Mary Mallon, an Irish immigrant. Soper learned that the family had hired an Irish cook three weeks prior to the outbreak and soon discovered that many other outbreaks followed the employment of this same cook. George Soper, a sanitation engineer, to try to find the cause of the outbreak in his home. Mary's trouble began in 1906 when she worked as a cook for the Warren family at Oyster Bay, a place not known to suffer from typhoid outbreaks. It was not known that a person could be completely healthy yet make others sick by being a carrier of harmful bacteria. The bacteria was transmitted to others through any uncooked food Mary Mallon prepared, causing them to become sick with typhoid.Īt the time Mary lived, the early 20th century, scientists were just beginning to understand the role of micro-organisms, such as bacteria, in illness. Mary admitted to rarely washing her hands after using the bathroom and when cooking. Mary had never had typhoid herself, but carried in her gallbladder, Salmonella typhi, the strain of bacteria known to cause typhoid. Typhoid Mary was the name (among others) given to thirty-seven year old Mary Mallon who was one of the first people known to modern medical science as a healthy carrier of disease. Mary Beth Keane presents a riveting fictional account of a young Irish woman known forever to history as "Typhoid Mary".
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