Typhoid Mary

By: George Soper

Narrated by: Laura Orlando

George Soper (1870-1948) was a sanitation engineer who tracked down Mary Mallon, or Typhoid Mary (1869-1938), a cook who was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid responsible for at least 54 cases with four deaths in nine different epidemics. Soper was called in when a landlord in Long Island struggled to trace the source of an outbreak in 1906. Soper’s every attempt to reason with Mary was met by denial and a refusal to cooperate. She was arrested by the New York Health Department and placed in a detention hospital on March 19, 1907. In 1910, she disappeared. Five years later - following outbreaks at the Sloane Hospital for Women - she was arrested again and placed in forcible detention at the Riverside Hospital of the New York City Department of Health, where she remained until her death in 1938. Although the courts refused to order her release, there was a good deal of sympathy for Typhoid Mary. She became a minor celebrity and was occasionally interviewed by the media.

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