There's Something About (Typhoid) Mary Quiz

Answer: Mary Mallon

"Typhoid" Mary Mallon was born in Cookstown, Ireland in 1869. According to personal accounts she shared with friends, she was fifteen when she left Ireland to make her own way in America. In photographs, she appears to be a healthy and well-groomed woman, not at all the sort one would envision as the notorious carrier of a deadly disease.

Answer: New York

Like thousands of other Irish immigrants who came to America in the late 19th century, Mary settled in New York City, in the vicinity of which she lived and worked (and was quarantined) for the rest of her life.

Answer: Cook

Upon first coming to America, Mary gravitated towards general domestic work, but on discovering that she could make a higher wage as a cook, she became proficient in that area. Unfortunately, the food and water she used in her cooking duties provided the perfect means for spreading the deadly disease of which she was an unwitting carrier.

Answer: False

Not only was Mary's case not unique, it wasn't nearly as deadly as that of another New York City resident, Tony Labella. Labella was similarly identified as a healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the early 1900s, and was linked to over a hundred instances of the disease and at least seven deaths.

Many more such cases have been recorded since then. Mary Mallon's "fame" seems to spring from her status as the first healthy carrier of the disease to be identified in the United States and her subsequent protests against what she believed to be unjust treatment at the hands of the health department.

Answer: She threatened them with a sharp utensil

According to the health officials who pursued the case, Mary responded to their request for blood and stool samples by grabbing a carving fork from the kitchen table and brandishing it menacingly. She insisted that she was a healthy woman who hadn't harmed anyone and ordered them out of the kitchen.

A second visit resulted in the same response, but this time the health officials had brought two policemen with them. Convinced that the police were there to arrest her for something she hadn't done, Mary fled the scene, vaulting over a fence and hiding in the closet of a neighbor's house, where she was eventually found. Forced into an ambulance, she continued to struggle and "swear with vigor," so much so that a Mr. Sopel, who accompanied her, had to sit on her for the entire ride to the hospital.

He later compared the ride to "being in a cage with a wild lion."

Answer: 26

After enduring a brief trial in which she was declared a health menace, Mary was sent off to live in a small cottage on North Brother Island with only a dog for company. Later, she was allowed to work in a hospital on the island and eventually became adept enough to lend assistance in the lab. Described by contemporaries as a diligent and reliable worker, she never lost her anger at the U.S. government for what she considered the unfair and unjust treatment of an innocent woman who had never intentionally harmed anyone.

Answer: Removal of her gall bladder

After her arrival on North Brother Island, Mary underwent aggressive treatment for her disease, including the enforced ingestion of laxatives and brewer's yeast. When nothing worked, doctors broached the possibility of removing her gall bladder, citing the higher instance of typhoid fever in middle aged women with gall bladder problems.

But Mary staunchly refused to allow them to perform the operation, which, considering the relative riskiness of such an undertaking in the early 1900s, is hardly surprising.

Answer: No

Even though Mary lost her suit against the health department, she stubbornly refused to believe that someone who was not sick could spread such a horrible disease as typhoid fever. She believed, instead, that she was the victim of social prejudice based on her nationality and the fact that she was an unmarried, childless woman who frequently changed jobs.

Answer: That she change professions

Ordered by a judge to never again work as a cook and to give notice whenever she changed her address, Mary left North Brother Island in 1910, disappearing from public view. However, in 1915, an outbreak of typhoid at a Manhattan maternity hospital was traced to the recent hiring of a new cook named Mary Brown. Of course Mary Brown turned out to be Mary Mallon, who had assumed an alias and returned to the only profession she knew.

She was "recaptured" and sent back to North Brother Island, never to regain her freedom.

Answer: Complications from a stroke

After suffering a stroke on North Brother Island in 1932, Mary was moved from her cottage to a hospital ward where she finally passed away in 1937. She died a frustrated and bitter woman who never fully understood her role in one of the saddest real life dramas of the early 20th century.

For more information on Typhoid Mary, visit
http: history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aao62900a.htm