Recapture
Some people believe that Mallon never had any intention of following the health officials' rules; thus they believe Mallon had a malicious intent with her cooking. But not working as a cook pushed Mallon into service in other domestic positions which did not pay as well. Feeling healthy, Mallon still did not really believe that she could spread typhoid. Though in the beginning Mallon tried to be a laundress as well as worked at other jobs, for a reason that has not been left in any documents, Mallon eventually went back to working as a cook.
In January of 1915 (nearly five years after Mallon's release), the Sloane Maternity Hospital in Manhattan suffered a typhoid fever outbreak. Twenty-five people became ill and two of them died.
Soon, evidence pointed to a recently-hired cook, Mrs. Brown. Mrs. Brown was really Mary Mallon, using a pseudonym.
If the public had shown Mary Mallon some sympathy during her first period of confinement because she was an unwitting typhoid carrier, all of the sympathy disappeared after her recapture. This time, Typhoid Mary knew of her healthy carrier status - even it she didn't believe it; thus she willingly and knowingly caused pain and death to her victims. Using a pseudonym made even more people feel that Mallon knew she was guilty.
Mallon was again sent to North Brother Island to live in the same isolated cottage that she had inhabited during her last confinement. For twenty-three more years, Mary Mallon remained imprisoned on the island.
The exact life she led on the island is unclear, but it is known that she helped around the hospital, gaining the title "nurse" in 1922 and then "hospital helper" sometime later. In 1925, Mallon began to help in the hospital's lab.
In December 1932, Mary Mallon suffered a large stroke that left her paralyzed. She was then transferred from her cottage to a bed in the children's ward of the hospital on the island, where she stayed until her death six years later, on November 11, 1938.
Typhoid Mary Lives On
Since Mary Mallon's death, the name "Typhoid Mary" has grown into a term disassociated from the person. Anyone who has a contagious illness can be termed, sometimes jokingly, a "Typhoid Mary." If someone changes their jobs frequently, they are sometimes referred to as a "Typhoid Mary." (Mary Mallon changed jobs frequently. Some people believed it to be because she knew she was guilty, but most probably it was because domestic jobs during the time were not long lasting service jobs.)
But why does everyone know about Typhoid Mary? Though Mallon was the first carrier found, she was not the only healthy carrier of typhoid during that time. An estimated 3,000 to 4,500 new cases of typhoid fever were reported in New York City alone and it was estimated that about three percent of those who had typhoid fever become carriers, creating 90-135 new carriers a year.
Mallon was also not the most deadly. Forty-seven illnesses and three deaths were attributed to Mallon while Tony Labella (another healthy carrier) caused 122 people to become ill and five deaths. Labella was isolated for two weeks and then released.
Mallon was not the only healthy carrier who broke the health officials' rules after being told of their contagious status. Alphonse Cotils, a restaurant and bakery owner, was told not to prepare food for other people. When health officials found him back at work, they agreed to let him go free when he promised to conduct his business over the phone.
So why is Mary Mallon so infamously remembered as "Typhoid Mary"? Why was she the only healthy carrier isolated for life? These questions are hard to answer. Judith Leavitt, author of Typhoid Mary, believes that her personal identity contributed to the extreme treatment she received from health officials. Leavitt claims that there was prejudice against Mallon not only for being Irish and a woman, but also for being a domestic servant, not having a family, not being considered a "bread earner," having a temper, and not believing in her carrier status.12
During her life, Mary Mallon experienced extreme punishment for something in which she had no control and, for whatever reason, has gone down in history as the evasive and malicious "Typhoid Mary."
Notes
1. Judith Walzer Leavitt, Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996) 16-17.
2. George Soper as quoted in Leavitt, Typhoid Mary 43.
3. Dr. S. Josephine Baker as quoted in Leavitt, Typhoid Mary 46.
4. Leavitt, Typhoid Mary 46.
5. Dr. S. Josephine Baker as quoted in Leavitt, Typhoid Mary 46.
6. Leavitt, Typhoid Mary 71.
7. Mary Mallon as quoted in Leavitt, Typhoid Mary 180.
8. Leavitt, Typhoid Mary 32.
9. Mary Mallon as quoted in Leavitt, Typhoid Mary 180.
10. Leavitt, Typhoid Mary 34.
11. Leavitt, Typhoid Mary 188.
12. Leavitt, Typhoid Mary 96-125.
Bibliography
Leavitt, Judith Walzer. Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.
