Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Typhoid Mary

Episode Date: May 20, 2015

This week on Sawbones, Justin and Sydnee share medical history's greatest present the sad story of one of medicine's most mistreated "villains." Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saabones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books! One, two, one, two, three, four! We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Wow! Hello everybody and welcome to Saw Bones, a marital tour of misguided medicine. I am your co-host yo-yo Justin And I'm Sydney. Wait, what what did you say your name was Justin? My name is yo-yo Justin McRoy Right wait. Yeah, well, okay, when did the when did yo-yo Justin? Well, I become a thing the thing is said I've been feeling like I don't have enough like a personal brand like I've been trying to build my personal brand That's kind of the arc of my life. I think it's podcasting but go ahead I'm trying to build a personal brand and like I Wanted to

Identify myself like I wanted to get so deeply into something or good at something that people would come to think of me by that thing. So like, you know how, like we've got friends, like Star Wars Greg and... Go ahead, who are other friends who have names like that? Oh. Wedgewood, Dishware, Mike, and Blink Oak Glass, Bob.

So, we have all those friends. And Drinky Joe. And Drinky Joe, the Joe who loves drinking. Joe's just not calling. So I kind of want, I thought, like, well, what could I build my brand around? It could be that I'm like sick at yo-yo or practicing trying to get good at yo-yo, so like yo-yo Justin. Okay. Well, two things. Would you consider yourself good at yo-yo, so like yo-yo-yo Justin. Okay, well two things.

Would you consider yourself sick at yo-yo? Not yet, but I have high hopes. If I feel like if I name, if I really bring myself as yo-yo-yo Justin, I'm gonna have to get good, right? Right, okay, like you're stuck with it then. I'm not stuck with it. Do you think that was the best name, yo-yo Justin?

Like that might be confusing, because what if somebody's trying to get your attention? They just say yo-yo-yo Justin, like that might be confusing because what if somebody's trying to get your attention? They just say yo-yo, yo-yo Justin. Exactly. Yeah, that is awful. Don't you think that'll be confusing after what? I don't have a lot of people trying to get my attention by saying yo, but I do see how

that could be an issue. I am going to start doing that now, so it's a problem for you. It's important to, you got to have a brand, you got to build your brand that way. Did you consider anything else other than yo-yo? Nope. I thought about Karate Justin but don't know any of that. And I thought about TV Justin because I'm already pretty good at that. Right, you watch a lot of TV. So like I thought I'd be good at that but like I that doesn't have the same dramas you know Justin. Nobody's gonna say hey can I see you watch TV? But they might say, hey, can I see some Yo, yo, tricks? Well, um, good luck with that endeavor.

I'm, I'm, I don't know that I support it, but you know, instead of yo, yo, if you would wanted to, you could have maybe picked like a, a disease to name yourself after. I, I, um, I BS Justin. yourself after? I, like, um, IBS Justin. IBS Justin. I'm scared of, irritable bowel syndrome Justin. I think that's actually perfect.

Mild cat allergy Justin. It's not that great. There's not a great ring to it. I think you need something a little more devastating before you get to, you know, like a bigger disease. Okay. Like, you know, like typhoid Mary. Generalizing anxiety disorder Justin. How's that? Okay. Like, you know, like typhoid Mary. Generalizing anxiety disorder Justin.

How's that? Okay. That's good, but like some days I'm not in that vibe. You know what I mean? So today I'm just on like a groovy, like sunset, the chill vibe. So I don't want, if I introduce myself like that, people are gonna expect me to be more anxious

than I may feel like that day. I can't have that as successful. I also don't know how people, like what if you tell somebody like that at the bank, like, and what's your name, sir? Generally anxiety disorder, Justin. How are they gonna, I mean, they're gonna wanna be comforting,

like, is there something I can do? Can I help you out? And then like, you don't wanna have that conversation with the guy at the bank. To something hotter, like, GAD maybe like, GAD, maybe like, GADDJ. You're GADDJ now.

Oh, I don't like that one. That's your thing now. Nope, that's it. Too late, you came up with it. Okay, so who's better than that? What's better than IBS Justin? Well, like I said, Typhoid Mary. Oh, right, Typhoid Mary.

Do you know anything about Typhoid Mary? She loved Typhoid. No, nope, that's wrong. No, it did not love Typhoid. No. Super into Typhoid Mary. Do you know anything about Typhoid Mary? She loved typhoid. No, no, that's wrong. No, it did not love typhoid. No, it's super into typhoid. You've probably heard of typhoid Mary. You've probably heard the, and in general, I think that's become like a term we use

for people. Yeah. Like you're a real typhoid Mary if you're getting colds and giving them. Given the people who got it. You're spreading disease. But a lot of people don't know the whole story behind Mary and so I thought we would talk about that

and I'll give you a little background on typhoid too. Great. A lot of people want us to talk about this. So I'm gonna tell you all their names now. Love crowd please. Yes, remember all these people. Daniel, Cassie, Emma, Grace, Todd Cassie Emma Grace Todd George and Vanessa. Thank you Thank you for all of you recommending typhoid

fever and or typhoid Mary one of the two and now we'll talk about them Okay words now So it's 430 BC. No, it's not Shhh, this is the fantasy you're whisking me away. Okay. We're in Athens, it's not. This is the fantasy. So you're whisking me away, okay? We're in Athens, Greece. That sounds lovely, doesn't it?

Everybody. Athens, there's all the columns. To your right, there's the first pita pit. That was ever open. The food here is delicious. Everybody's in Togas. It's great. Sandals are beautiful.

It's the second year of the Peloponnesian War. Oh. It's a little less. A little less picture-esque, but okay. Yeah. And now a devastating plague has hit the city. Maybe we don't want to imagine this. I don't want to get west away anymore. I want to whisk my home. So this was a big war. If all you historians know, this was a big important war, the Peloponnesian War. And it forever changed the kind of the landscape of Greece as a result of between Athens and Sparta, like there are lots of TV shows about this kind of thing, right? This period. The Athenians were kind of living in not the greatest conditions, they were like crowded along the long city walls,

while the war was going on. And so it was like the perfect setup for people to get sick, right? People living in tents and cram together, sanitation was poor. Everybody got really sick pretty much. This plague, whatever the plague of Athens was, devastated the Athenians and largely contributed to them losing the war.

Not the only factor, but largely contributed. About 25% of the city died. Eiff. Now, this is a great opening for typhoid fever. If we, in fact, knew that this was typhoid fever, we actually don't want it. But I just thought it was a really dramatic opening. It is a dramatic.

We think maybe it was typhoid. There was an argument that it was typhus. Some people thought it was the plague. And then was like this DNA study done where they like found this teeth pulp It's calling it that grosses me out. Oh What is that? They studied the DNA from like the inside of your Oh, I know I know I know and that uncomfortable But they went back and they found teeth and they extracted the pulp and they studied the DNA and they said oh We see typhoid and so they were this, it must have been typhoid. But then a lot of

people got upset about that. There are a lot of people with strong opinions about what the, the plague of Athens was. Many more than you think. Yes. Then you would assume. This is a big, I am not wandering into this quagmire. I'm just saying, maybe it was typhoid. I don't know. It may have killed everybody in Jamestown, Virginia. They've really said, 30% what maybe, we're not sure about that. We know for sure it killed a lot of people in the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. We're very certain about that. But typhoid fever really makes a name for itself in the 1800s and I'm gonna tell you about that, but first do you know anything about typhoid? Not the first thing. Most people don't. Could you even like name a symptom?

No. Yeah, I found that. Most people don't know much about typhoid. Not the first thing. Most people don't. Could you even like name a symptom? No. Yeah, I found that. Most people don't know much about typhoid. It's caused by salmonella, interica, syrup, or typhi, or just salmonella typhi is what we tend to call it. That's probably what you know by right. Salmonella typhoid. That's what I call it by, but we're close. So. Which you probably recognize salmonella. Yeah, that's the one from raw chicken right in turtles It's the one that is like you can't have a pet turtle like in all the Lysol commercials is like little squiggly little monsters that are cruising around on your counter After everybody is prepping raw chicken on their counters. Yeah, all the time stop it

Just like use a cutting border of play Just like use a cutting border or a plate or something. So it's a bacterial infection. It's transmitted through my favorite route, the fecal oral route. Oh, yeah. That's the best route. The party highway, we call it. I mean, it goes in through your mouth and comes out your butt and goes into somebody else's mouth. So don't think about that too much.

That is a, that, that cycle's way more unbroken than it should be, huh? It, once it gets in. that cycle's way more unbroken than it should be, huh? It once it gets in, It's that be a dead end robe, it's like a clover leaf with exits everywhere. Humans are bad at hygiene. Bad. So once it gets in through the oral route,

it adheres to the cells in your ilium, which is part of your small intestine. So it kind of clings to those cells. There's a little hairs that stick down and there's a silia, I'm thinking of silia. Yeah, yeah, no. Sorry. That's okay. We're talking about your small intestine.

I'll get them next time. So it gets into the cells and the lining of your intestines and it gets passed through your bloodstream, your lymphatic system, it's in your liver, your spleen, and it can get stored in your gallbladder, which is important because you can carry it around in your gallbladder even if you don't have symptoms. Okay.

But it's still like coming out, like your butt. Of the butt. Right, it's still the fecal part of this root is still happening. Now, if it does make you sick, which might as well be sick with it, you're probably gonna have some symptoms that are kind of non-specific,

you're gonna get a fever, you can get a really high fever. You can get abdominal pain. You can feel really weak, head achy, a loss of appetite. One weird thing is that with your fever, your heart rate will actually go down. You get this weird bradycardia with a fever, which is unusual. Usually your heart rate goes up when you have a fever, but it goes down. Blood pump in your face gets all red. Mm-hmm. You think your face gets, it's still gets red? With. I don't.

This special fever? Yeah. Okay. With a special fever, yeah, I think probably. Oh. You can get a rash, not everybody does, but it's like a flat rose-colored, spotty rash. And you can get constipation, or some people had diarrhea, but not typically. So really on specifics,

so some people wouldn't have even known they had it necessarily unless you got really, really sick with it and then some people can even die, but 30% can die. So some people just caught it really hard. Yeah, some people got it worse. And like I said, it untreated, there is a significant percentage of people

who can die from it. And this is still a problem as we'll talk about. But in the 1800s, typhoid was already pretty well known in the sense that there would be outbreaks. A lot of people would get sick. Some people would die and then it would disappear for a while. In the 1800s, we actually figured out pretty quickly like we isolated the bacteria.

We knew it had something to do with food and water. We didn't completely understand how it was getting passed from person to person, but we knew it was food and water. By 1896, we had a vaccine. Oh, nice. Wow. Which is pretty cool. Yes.

It's not, it continues to not be 100% effective. And of course, not everybody was on board with getting it. Did I get it? Yeah, you did. Remember when we went to Honduras? That's right. I did get it. Not everybody would have it. But I got no

not everybody gets the typhoid vaccine. But we have had it. But like I said initially people were a little resistant like why do we need this? The main way of dealing with it was isolation and quarantine. You find an outbreak and everybody like freaks out and runs away from, and it's awful and stigmatized, which is a great way to lead us into poor Mary Malone. Mary Malone. And then Malone comes Mary. Malone. Malone.

So, in 1906, like I said, we are already new about typhoid. We already had a vaccine against typhoid. But it was thought in the US that people who got typhoid were probably people who were kind of dirty. Lessor. Yes. Like they didn't have good sanitation. They, I mean, you knew it had something to do

with like bathroom activities. Most of these things do. Yes. And nobody's immune to that guys. We all get to the bathroom. Deal with it. Everybody poops. So it was unusual to see an illness like this

among people such as the Warrens. The Warren family was very well to do. Oh, okay. Yes, they were. I assume that through context, clues that I'm happy to hear it reinforced. Well, you looked kind of concerned, like Clueless, you looked like you didn't know what's going on.

I keep that with all the time. It's my natural defense mechanism. Okay, just so. You'll never see it come like the ass, like the dumb looking ass, sliding through the grass. That's a Ulysa's spectrum. Does the ass look dumb? A dumb looking ass does, yes.

Zidney, try to keep up. I know your forte is't nature, but... So I already told you the Warren family was well to do. If you didn't know that, you would know from... Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss mini harm. Cousinap. That was Nick's sound when they bite you, Cousinap. Don't look at ass, dude. We're gonna have to cover snake bites at some point. So, if you didn't already know that they were Tony, you would, from the next sentence, they were summering somewhere. So, summer somewhere. You have to do right? I've never summered anywhere I would like to. So, they were summering that year at Oyster Bay in Long Island.

And they had taken along, this family had taken along their cook that they had hired, Mary Malin. So it's pleasant, they're at the seashore. Mary Malin is an expert at making peach ice cream. Sounds delicious. Doesn't it? It's sitting next to the beach eating your peach ice cream I mean the waves roll in But then by August something had gone awry. Oh no one of the Warren daughters had become ill. Oh what you have typhoid

Good good guess crush it great job First she gets sick and then Mrs. Warren gets sick and then two of the maids get sick Oh, no, and then a gardener gets sick. And then another daughter gets sick. All in all, out of the 11 people there at the summer home, six people were sick. They had to bring their gardener with them. I don't know if it's just some crazy sobering. Maybe it was just, that's not rough.

I get like the properties gardener. Okay, maybe yeah. But we're going gonna guess that. Because the home they were staying in was owned by another family, the Thompson's, which I only mentioned because they got really into this really quickly because at the time, if your home was known to be, you know, infected with typhoid,

you're probably not gonna have a lot of look renting it again. Right. You know, like, hey, we have this lovely seaside cottage, three bedrooms, two and a half baths, a million bajillion typhoid. A little over half of people that lived here got typhoid. That's why you see those signs in the hotel, like no smoking, no typhoid, please.

Please, no typhoid. I like no typhoid. No typhoid room, please. So the Thompson's immediately, when they found out about the Warren's illness, hired an investigator to try to figure out, okay, we know that this can be spread something food and water, somehow this is a wealthy family, so we gotta get all over this.

When rich people get sick. No, no, it's problem. Well, Sherlock Holmes still kicking around in this time, because that would be cool if they hired him, it'd be a cool little story. I could write, sell somebody. Well, we're in Long Island. He took a boat.

He took a boat, so this is a history where Sherlock Holmes takes a boat. Took a boat, America, steak tide. Right. To break this typhoid case, all right open. So they hired Sherlock Holmes to figure out the sorts of the typhoid outbreak, and he was... Now this episode's getting good. He will. A lot of times here I'm just saying it's just

need a little juice. And that is another way of referring to myself. I just need to inject them with a little bit of just hyping up a bit. Well, he was unsuccessful. Impossible. Sorry, sorry. Once the game's a flood, he always gets his man. Well, he doesn't, I don't want to give Sherlock Holmes credit for this because there's a real person who really figured it out. Okay. George Johnson. No, no classic to us George sopper. You can write a book about him. Not okay. That's fine. It's not like a Didn't have the same ring, but we'll try it. So maybe I'll patch it, maybe I'll punch his name up in the transition into fiction. So George Sopper was like a civil engineer. It's actually George Danger.

Okay, George Danger Sopper. George Danger Sopper was contacted by the Thompson's because he had traced some outbreaks before. And so they were like, Hey, can you help us because we our summer home has been we've been trying to rent it for the last six months. We've had no no luck. So he starts investigating, but he's worried about going. They're worried about him coming. They're like, be careful. It's very dangerous. Then do you know he says it? Would go ahead, you tell me. I'm not afraid about it. That's what he says. That's what George Danger Soaper says. Yeah.

In response to be careful, it's dangerous. Yeah, I bet you thought I was gonna say danger is where I go lay, but what can I hack? Do you think I am? I'm sorry I underestimated you. Thank you. Okay. I had proceed.

All right. So by this time, when George Danger Sopper is investigating, Mary had already moved on to other employment. She'd already, I mean, all these people were sick. She had nobody to cook for. Nobody was very hungry. They had typhoid. So he began to research her.

So Mary Mallen had immigrated from Ireland around 1885 or so and pretty much had worked for a domestic servant since she'd been in the U.S. as a domestic servant. Mainly as a cook, she had a knack for it and you got paid more to be a cook. So if you were good at it, it was a good job to have. He figured out that since 1900, which is as far back as he could trace her employment, she had worked at seven different homes and facilities, and all and all 22 people had become sick between those places, with something that sounded like typhoid. One young girl had even died. Now, wait a minute. You said earlier that like 30% of people died.

That, I don't understand how one out of 22 died. Well, these are probably just people that he figured out. Well, you know what? Also, I guess when you quoted that stat, it was in regards to to Athens where we had like basically no medical, you know, and let me say up to 30%. I think like the stats are like 10 to 30%. Well, and I have to assume they're different strains, right? Yeah, and it depends on, I mean, the outbreaks are different. It depends on if there's immunity already.

Like typhoid is endemic in some areas. So like people may have like a low level immunity to it all the time. And I mean, these were during, these were times when a lot of people were getting exposed to typhoid. So, yeah, different place to time. And I mean, who knows how great his investigation was. It's not like we had their kind of records we have today.

Now, if you get typhoid, you need to report it to the health department. That wasn't always the case. Only one that he figured out had died. So, he starts worrying that there's something up with this Mary Malin. Now at this point, the idea that she would be healthy and be giving people typhoid was not really well understood.

So he's kind of just, he's working on like instinct here. Good old George Danger Soaper. So he starts tracking Mary down. He finds her working at another home, but I guess serving more people, Typhoid, Ridden, Peach Ice Cream. And he basically corners her in the kitchen. Well, he doesn't corner her.

He approaches her. You get the impression from reading about him that he really is just like it's in the spirit of scientific inquiry. He's doing his job. He finds her and he's like, hey, you don't know me. I'm working for a family who's trying to figure out

who started a typhoid outbreak, and I'd like you to give me samples of your blood and poop, please. And she was like, I know thank you. Yeah, so you can imagine that she was not pleased with this. And she chased him out of the kitchen with a carving fork. Okay. So perfectly rational response.

He brought a friend along. He had a co-investigator He was like, hey, I'm gonna try to talk to this woman again. I'm gonna go by her house Well, you can with me because I thought that would work out better So this woman is alone at her home and two men show up at her door and start demanding that she poop in a cup Like that's gonna go over well So she basically chased them off screaming and cursing at them again And that's when George Danger Soaper decided this had gone

a little above his pay grade, and he called the health department and was like, hey, listen, you're gonna have to deal with this. I am not talking to this crazy lady again. That doesn't sound like George Danger Soaper, I know, but that's fine. So what have a next in? Well, I'm gonna tell you the next chapter

of this thrilling Sherlock Holmes story. But first, follow me to the building department. Let's go. So what's next for Typhoid Mary? So going on with Typhoid Mary, at this point, she scared off George Danger so per twice. And he has turned her over to the health department. So the health department in less Dr. Josephine Baker turned her over to the health department. So the health department in list Dr. Josephine Baker to go try and reason with her. I don't know what the, my theory is that the rationale is she's a woman. Sure. That's what my thought is. So let's woman to woman.

Let's talk about your typhoid. So she shows up at her house and again tries to talk with her and Mary's not having any of it. At this point, she gets the, like, I don't know who these weirdos are, but they're accusing me of being sick and I'm clearly not. Right. That's still great. So, Dr. Josephine Baker leaves and comes back with five cops and an ambulance. So this time Mary's ready for. So as Baker approaches the door, Mary lunges at her with a kitchen fork.

It does not injure her. But then takes off. And there's some confusion at first as everybody's kind of stumbling around and Mary Malin is running. And so they start searching her house and they can't find her. So they're looking all over her home. And then they notice in the backyard footsteps, footprints, footprints going to a chair up against a fence. You can't make this stuff up.

Yeah, this is wild. So they follow the footprint. I don't get a lot of these moments and moment accounts in solvents. I really appreciate this. Is this too much? No, like you just, like, you don't get a lot of like, I don't know, colorful situations that are richly detailed

There's a lot of like and then for 50 years everybody died Well, I'm trying I appreciate it. I'm trying to mix it up for you. Keep you interested. Yeah So they so they follow the footprints to the chair They climb over the fence and there's Another house and other property right there. So they start searching that property too. All in all, it takes them five hours of searching, which I can't imagine these were too big. Yeah, you know, I mean, she was working as a car. She wasn't paid that much.

So it takes them forever. And they finally note that they see sticking out of a little closet under a stairs. I imagine it's kind of the closet that Harry Potter stayed in. Like Harry Potter had typhoid. Right, then that's why he was in the closet that Harry Potter stayed in. Harry Potter had typhoid. Right. Then that's why he was in the closet under the stairs.

However, he did not wear blue calico. Apparently Mary Mellon did. Can't believe the dursleys for that one. Kids got typhoid. I don't care how magic he is. He can be magic as anything. Let's keep him under the stairs. Keep him under the stairs.

He's got typhoid. So they see a little piece of blue cloth underneath the closet door. They open the closet door. They open the closet door. She comes out kicking, screaming, cursing a blue streak, doing everything she can to fight these police officers, but they manage to get her in an ambulance. Dr. Baker would rather would later describe it as she was a caged lion in the back of the ambulance, just screaming and yelling and throwing a fit. They take her to the hospital. They force her to give blood and stool samples. Oh cool job. Yeah. Hey, Michael. What's Michael job? Well, Michael job is I get to get a stool sample from a lady who's trying to kill me. That's a cool afternoon. That's a fun. That's really a no. That's really a Kobe, I should have been there, huh? That sounds like a great job for the medical student.

Yeah. I'm kidding. So they take blood and stool samples and this confirms their suspicion. They do find the typhoid bacteria in her stool. So they send her to North Brother Island, which is an island I think up in the Bronx. And to an isolated

part of a hospital, Riverside Hospital, for quarantine. And say, just go there and stay. That's where you live now, Mary Malin. On this island. They basically had no end in sight. There was no plan. It's not, they didn't understand, like, why are you healthy, but you're giving people this bacteria. We don't really understand. They didn't explain this to her either

They took some samples. They saw the bacteria and they shipped her off for quarantine Never explaining to her why in the world. I mean because at this point Why would she think she had typhoid she was healthy right so she gets mad about it and in 1909 she actually sews the health department This whole time they were making her send samples to the health department to be analyzed. So over the course of time she'd been there so far, 163 samples that she'd sent. Of those, 120 were positive, which is just probably indicative of that she wasn't constantly shedding the bacteria and sometimes they missed it, you know, that kind of thing. But she was having her own doctors run samples on the island

and they said they were all negative. I can't really explain the discrepancy, but either way, she gets mad. She says, I don't even have this. They're keeping me here and these doctors are telling me I don't have it. So she's who's the health department and the health department wins.

Yeah. So she's still stuck there. OK. Until the following year, when a new health commissioner takes over and he takes some pity on her And I will say at this point she was well known in the media. She was called Typhoid Mary They it was all over the newspapers like they had already dubbed her this and and had made cartoons about her and you know She was this this figure of ridicule

But some public sentiment had started to turn in her favor. There were some people who were starting to sympathize with her and say, like, at least let the lady off the island. Why does she have to let, you know, she's healthy. She's like, why are you crying? No, she didn't mean to. She didn't know what she was doing. So in 1910, the new health commissioner takes pity on her

and allows her to go free, but he says, this is your contingency. You can't work as a cook, okay? Let's just be rational. You can't make food for people. Got it. So Miss Mary Mallon goes on her way. And then in 1915, there's another outbreak of typhoid.

This is at Sloan Maternity Hospital in Manhattan. 25 people become sick and two of them die. Oh no. So they go to investigate what's going on at this hospital to try to figure out where it's coming from. And they find a cook named Mary Brown who looks suspiciously similar to Mary Mallen who was not supposed to be cooking for anyone ever again. It's all she knows though though. Cut her some slack.

So why did Mary go back to cooking? Who knows? Part of it is probably she didn't really understand why she wasn't supposed to. She still didn't believe that she had whatever they told her she had. She claimed she never had Typhoid to begin with. So why would she think she had it? She also probably made a lot more money as a cook than as another domestic servant. So it was a better living.

When they captured her at this point, the public took no pity on her. Everybody pretty much made her a figure of ridicule and she was ostracized. She was sent back to North Brother Island and she lived the remainder of her 23 years. That's quarantined on this island. I know that she made listen that she made some mistakes,

but I still think that's her. Well, it's interesting because in general, we kind of look back on Typhoid Mary as like a bad guy, because she had this and then she went and worked again and people died. But to be fair, if I could be a Typhoid Mary sympathizer for a second, she didn't understand because nobody ever tried to explain it to her. And there weren't really a lot of healthier carriers known.

Now, after they found her, they started researching this, they started looking for other people who were carriers, but were healthy. And by the time she died, they'd found 400 other people who were also just healthy people who carried typhoid. So here's my question about this. That's confusing to me. Then maybe you can help me clear up.

The, she is a healthy carrier, right? So she can infect other people with typhoid. Yes. If I were to get typhoid in this time period and then get through it, I would no longer be contagious after that time period, correct? Most likely, yes. So why was her body sort of like in this state of

some people just do some people it lives in their gallbladder it just kind of takes up takes up residence there colonizes them and then it's there for good there was actually they tried at one point to force her to have her gallbladder removed theorizing that that may fix this she refused refused because again, they didn't explain. They just said, hey, we want you to have a surgery too. Right. And she said no. But so some people did become healthy carriers.

Most didn't. Most would just clear it and be done with it. But I should make note, other people were quarantined when they were found to be healthy carriers. We're only kept for a couple of weeks and let go. There was even one guy who owned a restaurant and baked who was told to stop doing this if he, in order to, you know, because he was found to be a healthy carrier. And he basically just said, like, yeah, I won't do it anymore.

And they didn't even like follow up on that. So it's not like she was the only one. She was just the only one who was treated this way. Nowadays, Typhoid is still around. There's not as many cases in the US, usually just returning travelers, people who've been to parts of the developing world where we still see a lot of typhoid up to 21.5 million cases. A year, there is a vaccine. It's not 100% effective, though. You didn't tell me that. It's not So there's the pill before we have vaccine pill or you can get a shot either way antibiotics can treat it

But the best thing to do is when you're traveling be careful about your food and water Make sure that you know you boil it or it comes from a bottle or you know You know if you if you're getting food that you're rinsing in water that's clean and like fruits and vegetables, that kind of thing. One thing though, there is a drug resistance strain of typhoid out there now. Great. So that's horrifying. Okay, good.

Sorry, I don't have like a silver lining to that. So I'm back to being. Sanitation, wash your hands. Okay, wanna say a big thanks to the Maxxone Fun Network for having us as part of their Family of podcasts. You can hear a lot of Other programs that I guarantee you will like check out Ono Ross and Kerry. It's a it's a couple of great folks who investigate Everything from cults to weird treatments to everything if you like sobans I bet you will like Ono Ross and Kerry that. That is my promise to you, the viewer or the listener. There's a lot of great shows

on that. Check out. So make sure you do that. Follow us on Twitter at solbons. I'm at Justin Macroi. And I'm at Sydney Macroi. That's s-y-d-n-e. E, thanks to taxpayer afflictionists, users on medicines. This is the intro and outro of our program. Hey, we're going to be coming to Vancouver and Seattle in the end of August. If you want to get tickets to see us with my brother, my brother, me, you can go to bit.ly4tz-mb-mb-am-c-addle or bit.ly4tz-van-mb-mb-am. Now, there's a reserve seats. So if you want to go to those shows, make sure you do that right. The second.

I think it's going to do it for a sister. I think so that's a reserve seats. So if you want to go to those shows, make sure you do that right the second And I think it's gonna do for a sinceter. I think so Thank you Justin. Thank you Yo-yo Justin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Justin Until next Wednesday when we have another topic to talk about. I am yo-yo Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy And as always don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Yeah! Maximumfund.org

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