Great article at Canada Free Press – […]  Mary Mallon, “the most dangerous woman in America” was born in Ireland and later worked as a cook for wealthy families in New York.
She was the first known carrier of typhoid fever in the USA, and although without any symptoms, she was still contagious and continued to spread the disease to at least 53 persons (who spread it to others), three of whom died.
It is thought she infected 50 others who died but it could not be determined since she changed her name so often. She refused to stop working as a cook and was confined to a hospital where she died 20 years later.
Mary worked as a cook from 1900 to 1907 in New York City area and within two weeks of her employment, residents developed typhoid fever. Then she moved to New York City where members of the family for whom she worked developed fever and diarrhea, and the laundress died.
Mallon then went to work for a lawyer; she quit after seven of the eight people in that household became ill. She took other positions in Long Island, and left a trail of infection everywhere. She always resigned when family members became ill.
She was identified as “typhoid Mary” in a 1908 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Later, in a textbook, she was given the moniker of “Typhoid Mary.”
She was approached by a typhoid researcher who asked for urine, blood, and feces samples but she refused and charged him with a large, sharp craving fork. He absconded quickly, and when he did a study of her employment it revealed that seven of the eight families she cooked for had contracted typhoid fever.
The New York City Health Department sent Dr. Josephine Baker after Mary and Baker took five cops and an ambulance. Mary lunged at her with a large fork but was finally restrained and taken into custody. She was held in isolation on a small island in New York City’s East River for three years.
In 1910 she was released after promising to stop cooking and to take hygienic measures. She got work as a laundress but that paid less than cooking, consequently, she changed her name to Mary Brown and went back into the kitchen and continued to infect innocent people—people were paying her to infect them!
In 1915 she caused another outbreak while cooking for a hospital in New York City under her alias, Mary Brown. Twenty-five people were infected and two died. In March of 1915 she was arrested and returned to the island where she was confined for the rest of her life. (read more)