Mary Mallon 1869 : Short Biography

Mary Mallon was born in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone on Sept 23^rd 1869.  At the age of 15 she immigrated to the United States.  Mallon began working for affluent families as a cook in 1900 and within two weeks of her employment, first at Mamaroneck NY, residents developed typhoid fever.  She changed jobs often, but this pattern of people become ill around her continued.  In Manhattan, the laundress the family Mallon worked for died while she was there.  Having got another job on Long Island in 1906, 10 of the 11 family members became ill and diagnosed with typhoid within weeks of her employment.  This continued in the following three households that employed her and eventually one of the families hired a researcher, George Soper, to find out what was happening.

In June 1907, Soper’s results were published in the “Journal of the American Medical Association”, stating “It was found that the family changed cooks on August 4^th, she remained in the family only a short time, leaving about 3 weeks after the outbreak occurred.  The cook was described as an Irish woman about 40 years of age, tall, heavy, single.  She seemed to be in perfect health”.  Soper discovered that a cook fitting Mary’s description was involved in all the outbreaks and tracked her down. 

Mallon was furious and refused to believe she had anything to do with the spreading of the disease.  Eventually the New York City Health Department sent physician Sara Josephine Baker to speak with Mallon, who felt she had done nothing wrong.  Baker went back a few days later with several officers who took Mallon into custody.  It was found she had typhoid bacteria in her gallbladder, but she refused to have it removed as she did not believe she carried the disease.  She was held in isolation for 3 years until, in 1910, the New York State Commissioner of Health made the decision that disease carriers could not be kept in isolation and, providing Mallon changed her occupation and took reasonable measured to protect people she came in contact with, she was released.

Mallon tried working as a laundress but the pay was not good so she changed her name to Mary Brown and went back to cooking for a living.  For the following 5 years she spread typhoid wherever she worked and ultimately was the cause of a major outbreak in 1915 at Sloane Hospital for Women.  She was found by police, but still refused to have her gallbladder removed and spent the rest of her life in quarantine.

She was interviewed by the Press occasionally and they were instructed not to even accept a glass of water from her.  At least 3 fatalities have been attributed to her, but the true figure is presumably much larger because of her use of aliases and her refusal to cooperate.  Mallon died of pneumonia in 1938.

Sources:  The Irish Times, History.com