WEBVTT - The Wind Cries Typhoid Mary 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:04.520 Welcome to Stuff you should know from House Stuff Works 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:13.440 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:17.280 There's Charles W. Greeny Boy, Chuck and Bryant and Jerry 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:21.799 back in the his house. Now more guest producing. No, 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:27.720 that was a rough week she was, but she's back. Hey, Jerry, 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:35.120 did you hear that? Everybody? Probably not? Chuck? Yes, Jerry. 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:40.760 Have you guys ever heard how much manure a horse 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:42.800 produces in a day? I'm glad you went with this. 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:47.400 I was never really occurred to me. Go ahead, pounds 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:50.960 twenty five pounds of manure. Did you do the math? 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:54.000 Because I did? Right? Will you come with that in 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.640 a second? Okay? So, um, just go back with me 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:58.560 a little bit, Chuck to the time when Daniel day 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.720 Lewis was walking around New York with meat Cleaver overacting 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.080 a little bit in my opinion. Um, And it's the 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:10.920 the late nineteenth century, and the horse is the u 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:15.480 is the preferred mode of transportation for everything from the 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:20.160 the most humble delivery cart to the greatest ambulance to 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.720 you know, people who like to ride horses. Three musketeers, 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.480 that kind of thing. Everybody had a horse to the 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:32.200 limit to the airport wherever. So there were about two 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:38.800 hundred thousand horses in New York City in use in right, Yeah, 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:44.440 multiply that times twenty five pounds of poop a day 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:46.080 and what do you get chucked? Well? I did two 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:49.160 thousand because I thought that was the number. Okay, so 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:51.600 that's fine, We'll go with that. More than six point 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:55.120 two million pounds of horse poop per day deposited on 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.200 the streets of New York. Okay, Now, um, let's say 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:03.800 that's okay, Um, there's that many horses. There's six point 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:08.160 two million pounds of horsepoop every day. It's a lot 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:10.040 of poop. But not only that, there was no one 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.600 cleaning it up. It was not enough people cleaning it up. 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:16.320 Let's say that for sure. It was just left there 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.680 basically in a lot of cases, um to basically be 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:23.320 ground into the cobble stone. And you know, it makes 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.880 you think, like, I'll bet there's a substantial layer of 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:30.080 horse manure under the streets of New York that make 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:35.360 up like that initial stratum of of of Earth, the 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:37.960 Poopa sphere. I think, oh wait, that would be an 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:41.760 outer space. No, no, because the lithosphere is yes, so 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:45.840 you were dead on. Thank you the popa sphere Um, 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:50.680 things change a little bit. The New York Institute's a 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:55.680 department of health and a group of basically an army 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:01.399 of cleaning guys, very much like the the garbage man 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:06.120 that Homer Simpson envisions in the in the It's the 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:10.640 Garbage Commissioner episode. I can't remember which one it is. Uh, oh, 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.360 the Loveday episode is what it is? Okay. Um, These guys, 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:17.080 they're called white Wings. They are deployed to clean up 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:18.760 the streets of New York and they do a heck 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:23.800 of a job. And possibly the fact of the the episode, 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.040 if I may take it please, this is where the 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.359 term cleanliness is next to godliness is coined. Pretty cool 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:34.000 the New York Department of Health slogan in downtown New York, 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.240 Josh at the turn of the century. Back then was 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:41.960 a disgusting, filthy place. And yet I love New York. 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:44.080 I love the history of New York. We watched we 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.360 both watched the same Nova video on Typhoid Mary today 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:52.160 and they had photos of mountains of manure pushed to 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.120 the sidewalks, and uh, sort of like if you've ever 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:57.600 been in New York on garbage day. Imagine all those 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.040 garbage bags is poop, Yeah, but not pooping bags, just 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:05.000 mound poop. And they were dead animal carcasses. Did you 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:07.680 see that. Probably it was like these boys playing in 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:09.680 the street with just a dead horse right in the 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:12.760 middle of their little stickball miamond I guess he was 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:17.839 on base or something. And it was just a foul, disgusting, unclean, 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:21.000 unsanitary place, which, like you said, led to the formation 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:24.279 of the Department of Sanitation, Right, So the Department, the 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:29.040 Department of Sanitation um was imbued with a lot of 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:33.599 clout from the get Yeah. And as you said that, 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:39.080 the Nova documentary on Typhoid Mary, it's called like the 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:42.799 Most Dangerous Woman in America, but it's also on YouTube 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:47.320 under Typhoid Mary Nova. That's good. It was um, but 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:49.840 they had a lot of cloud. They could forcibly inoculate 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:54.960 you with these new fangled inoculations. They could forcibly remove 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:57.440 you to a quarantine island, and New York had a 0:04:57.480 --> 0:04:59.719 bunch of them. Yeah, that was popular at the time. 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:04.479 But basically, your civil liberties could be entirely suspended without 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:08.359 any sort of due process of law. Um. And you 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.960 if you were considered sick. And a lot of this 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:16.880 was based on this new understanding of science of germ 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:21.000 theory thanks to our buddy Louis past year bacteriology yep. Um. 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:26.080 So the problem was science reporting hadn't been established yet. 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:28.680 So all of the people who were in charge understood 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:31.440 what was going on. They understood germ theory, they understood innoculations, 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:34.320 they understood force quarantine, but no one had explained it 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.880 to the public fully right, So it's a recipe for disaster. 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.680 So there's this thing called typhus or typhoid, I'm sorry, 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:45.800 And apparently they were one and the same until the 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.960 nineteenth centuries. About this time, typhus and typhoid typhoid fever 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:54.240 were separated. But typhoid fever fever, which is the star 0:05:54.320 --> 0:06:00.240 of this co star of this episode. Um. It's particularly asked, 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:05.480 isn't it it is? Josh, we're talking not just ordinary diarrhea, 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:09.400 but doubled over cramping, painful diarrhea. I think you'd call 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:14.719 that violent diarrhea, violent diarrhea, high fever, red rashes, sleeplessness, 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:18.640 death if you don't treat it. A lot of people 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.599 through history have been stricken with it, including Mary Todd Lincoln, 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:30.719 Georgia O'Keefe, Rabbi Shankar I really uh, Frank McCourt author, 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:34.080 and Wilbur Wright actually of the Wright Brothers fame died 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.600 from typhoid fever. Wow, pretty sad And that was I mean, 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.240 that's a scant uh sampling from a long, long list 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:43.279 of famous people that have Those are the people who 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.120 count who had typhois. I think Lincoln's son actually died 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.599 from it as well, but I don't think Mary Todd 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.479 Lincoln died from it. Yeah, but you can know she 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:55.320 died of um or something like that is what they 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:59.760 would have called abraham hysterics, right, okay, nice. Um. So, 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:02.720 before we started to get a handle on typhoid fever, 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.000 it's by the way, it's a um it's caused by 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:10.720 the bacterium Salmonella TYPEE. It's a type of Salmonella UM. 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.000 And before we got a handle on it with antibiotics, 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:18.440 apparently twelve percent of people died from typhoid. So it 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:21.240 was a big public health problem. Yeah, New York especially 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.760 there were four thousand new cases per year and killed 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:28.760 one in ten people at the time or one And 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:36.960 remember that that nationwide. Uh yeah, as I understand it 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:41.960 before antibiotic, so um, let's even just say tem percent. 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.640 That's a big public health problem. And because it's spread 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:49.000 by the bacterium salmonella. Did that come out weird because 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.080 it did in my head slightly a little bit of 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:54.680 the lazy tongue there, because because of because it's spread 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:58.080 through salmonella, or because it's a result of salmonella, it's 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:04.240 very very easily spread from handling your own poop e g. 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:08.720 Using the bathroom, not washing your hands, and then handling food, 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:14.400 uncooked food specifically. Yeah, it was normally considered to be 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:19.440 like a disease of the lower classes. Yeah, until nineteen 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.360 oh six. Was it chuck the summer of nineteen oh 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.600 six in a in a wealthy quarter of the United 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.680 States on Long Island called Oyster Bay. Billy Joels film, 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:35.800 I believe it's neither here nor there. Still, that's one 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.040 extra fact you just gave everybody. That's true. Uh yeah. 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:41.640 When it when it happened in Oyster Bay, it was 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.640 a much bigger deal because it was more closely associated 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.440 with let's say, the Lower east Side tenement housing the 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.600 filth of Lower Manhattan at the time they've cleaned all 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.760 that up. Now, um, it's expense. What you get though, 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.040 when you're in Oyster Bay is you get wealthy families 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:00.400 who can spend a little money, and that's what you had. 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:03.280 In the case of the Thompson family, they were afraid 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:05.080 that they would not be able to rent out the 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.440 house that they were living in because uh, people were 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:10.360 getting sick in that house over and over and over 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:13.000 and they couldn't figure it out. They decided to hire 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:17.240 an investigator who turned out to be a very prominent 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:21.679 figure in this case name Dr George Soper, a sanitation 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:26.920 engineer and UH epidemiologists, one of the first epidemiologists really 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:29.920 looking to make his career well, he already had out 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:35.240 he had a reputation um of of you know, being 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.520 able to track any illness back to his source. So 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:41.240 this family, the Thompson family, is that the one who 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:43.000 owned the house or the one who's who got sick. 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.560 They owned the house, and I believe some family members 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:48.680 had also gotten sick. Okay, so but there was a 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:51.400 family that rented it originally that's where the typhoid outbreak 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.080 first happened. So maybe maybe they were just the homeowners. 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:59.360 The Thompson family hired Soaper I believe, yeah yeah, and said, hey, 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:05.160 we can't this house anymore because people are dying from typhoid. Concerned, right, yeah. 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.320 So Soaper gets on the case, starts some finds the 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:13.200 family where the typhoid outbreak occurred, and starts interviewing the 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:17.480 heck out of him, and he's stumped. He can't figure 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:19.360 it out, like, where did this thing come from? There? 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:23.520 These are clearly patient zeros right here, like nobody else 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.760 on know Weyster Bay had it before then they didn't 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.319 bring it with them from the city. There's somebody missing, 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.000 there's something missing. And he finally says, have I talked 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.680 to everybody who was in this house in the summer 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:37.679 of nineteen o six and they said you should talk 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:42.160 to typhoid Mary, I don't know. I didn't think of that. 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:45.160 He goes what you know, what he did was he 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.360 interviewed kitchen staff and it turns out that there was 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:52.360 a former employee that was no longer there, Mary Mallon, 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:55.760 and he said, wait a minute, you know, maybe I 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.080 should check this lady out. Turns out she loved to 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:01.920 serve this ice cream and fresh peaches. Which is uncooked. 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:04.760 That was her, I guess her. She was noted for 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:08.080 that dessert, right, But even more incriminating than the dessert 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:13.000 is the idea that when he looked into her history, 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:15.560 she'd worked for eight families in ten years, and six 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:39.040 of those families said had typhoid outbreaks. So he began 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.600 to think that there was something special about Mary mallon 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:45.679 and and that she was what's called a healthy carrier 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.920 meaning um and and I'm just gonna paraphrase this awesome 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:54.560 way that Nova doc put it right. When you get 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.080 typhoid fever, there's almost always a clear winner. If the 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:02.319 bacteria wins, you doe, and if you if you win, 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:05.160 if your immune system wins, the bacteria dies. But there's 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:08.720 sometimes where there's a stalemate where your immune system continues 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.640 to function and you live, and the bacteria continues to 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.400 live in your system, which means you're healthy, but you're 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:18.320 also extremely contagious. And that's what Soaper came to believe 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:21.640 Mary Mallen was. So she was technically she actually had 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:26.160 typhoid fever, but her immune system was able to suppress 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:30.280 all of it except the killing of all the bacteria part. 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:34.959 So pretty cool, souper cool but interesting because this is 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.880 brand new. Yeah, and as guy's on the cutting edge 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.520 of this kind of thinking. Yeah, and he knew like, 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:45.240 potentially she could be the face of bacteriology. The first 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:48.000 bacteriology lab had just set up in New York City 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.880 and it was a burgeoning, uh not industry but science. 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:54.679 So he was like, man, this is really gonna put 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:56.760 me on the map if I can probably prove this 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.240 at least. So he he didn't have any training in 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:02.280 science reporting either, though, did he He didn't have training 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:04.760 in people skills studently either. He goes to her and 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.079 he's like, I finally found you. I believe you're infected 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.440 with typhoid. So I need samples of your stool, your 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:13.679 urine and your blood. By the way, my name is 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.160 George Soper. Good to me And she's like, oh, no, 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.160 you're not. Yeah. So it's about this time that that 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.480 Mary Mallen. We should describe who she is at least, 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:26.240 go ahead. Mary Mallen was Irish. She or Irish, came 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:29.600 over as a teenager by herself. She was born in 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:35.240 the poorest town county in Ireland, and Ireland at that time, 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:37.839 especially in the poorest County not a great place to 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:41.600 be no, also dirty, also lots of death and dying 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.720 in filth and disease. And she was born in eighteen 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:46.760 sixty nine, so I think that's on the heels of 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.720 the Potato famine, if not still in the middle of it. 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:51.760 So she comes over as a teenager, lives with her 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:53.480 aunt and her uncle who passed away, and then is 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:57.080 basically on her own in New York. And by all accounts, 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:00.319 as a result of how she grew up in Thanto 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.760 being on her in New York, she was very, very tough, 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:08.000 in fiery and independent and resourceful. Like had it been 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.600 anyone else, this might not have gone down like this. 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:13.880 They picked, literally not picked. But as it turns out, 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.400 it sounds like she was the toughest, most obstinate, stubborn, 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.200 fiery woman in New York City, right. And but she 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:21.880 was also good at what she did. She worked her 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:26.480 way up in the domestic servant classes to the pinnacle 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.080 of it. A cook in that era in the domestic 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.920 in domestic service, and sort of manager of the kitchen staff. Well, 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:36.360 not just that, almost the whole house, basically the all 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:38.440 of the servants. The cook was pretty much at the top, 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:42.200 maybe tied with the butler, depending on the house. But um, 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:44.880 she was a cook for all these these families, and 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:47.240 not just you know, families that could afford a cook, 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:52.120 but like very wealthy families. Um, really well at her 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:56.000 at her job. But she took no guff from any man. 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.280 And when Soaper came and told her that he wanted 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:04.240 her feces, she chased him off with a carving fork. Supposedly, 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:09.400 that's how Super reported it. Yeah, and you know, we'll 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:12.280 get into her specifics later, and she got a real 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.760 bad rap, but at the time there was, like you said, 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:19.400 there was no understanding on the public's behalf of this. 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:23.600 This whole zero I'm sorry, healthy carrier is not even 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.040 proven yet. So I mean, what is she supposed to do? 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:29.160 Just say, like, sure, I'll go with you stranger, take 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.680 my poop and and put me in a quarantine. Yeah, 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:35.560 So she fought it like she probably had every right 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:39.400 to right most initial though wouldn't normally, you know, brain 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:43.840 to a fork, a carving fork on somebody. But again 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:45.760 it's lost to history whether she really did do that 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:48.080 or not. It's a good story. So Super takes off 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.120 and he's not one to let his career just kind 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:55.240 of slip through his fingers, and he goes to the 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:59.880 New York Commissioner of Health, Herman Biggs. So Biggs was 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:02.760 he was the one. He was the first one, and 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:05.120 he was the one who was like, oh, by the way, 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:07.320 we can come into your house and forcibly inoculate you 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:09.520 and your children if we want, and we will do 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:11.520 that too if we if we think that it's in 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.640 the interests of the public health. So Biggs was very 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:18.520 sympathetic to Soaper's description of the story of this crazy 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.600 Irish woman who was just patient zero and more than 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:26.160 one outbreak um and basically needed to be dealt with. 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:31.520 So he ordered a one of his case workers, a 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.120 few a few cops in an ambulance out to where 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:39.200 Mary lived a tenement. Yeah, Josephine Baker was the inspector 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:42.000 and not the dancer. No, but she apparently was pretty 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.440 tough lady as well. She started her own rainbow family. 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.040 Oh really yeah. Oh, and you know, we should also 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.360 point out one of the reasons that Mallon was so 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:55.320 upset initially was that she got the feeling that were 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:59.160 essentially calling her dirty an unsanit here because he explained 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:01.520 to her, like, oh, you go poop and then you 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.040 get poop in your hands and you handle peaches that 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:07.320 you feed people, and so she was very uh, she 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:09.680 was upset that they felt like she they were picking 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:14.560 on her cleanliness, like just a dirty Irish and mcgrinners exactly. 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:17.639 They were, you know, dirty drunks and causing problems and 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:20.160 that was just the stereotype at the time and she 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:25.520 wasn't like that, she said, right, so, um, soaper goes 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:30.240 to Biggs. Biggs orders some people out. They used their 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:33.440 power and grab Mary. Well, she hides out in the 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:35.720 house for a while though okay, like it took three 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.639 hours to find her. Well when they finally did, apparently 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.280 it took all either three or four cops to drag 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:45.000 her to the ambulance and then the the female case 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.760 workers sat on her for the whole ride to this hospital, 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.240 this quarantine hospital, where she was kept for a while. 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.440 And like you said, it's it just happened to work 0:17:55.480 --> 0:18:00.320 out that the person who was who was tie Foyd 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:06.320 Mary was this very stubborn, obstinate, self assertive woman from Ireland, 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:10.520 and she came about at a time where there's a 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:13.800 big question about public health, like you know, where do 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:19.159 an individual, civil rights and public the greater public good begin. 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:23.680 That's still going on, it still is. But she forced this, 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:28.240 this conversation into the national spotlight starting about now. So 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:30.840 they keep her. They test her. They they're like, you 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:33.919 need to poop into this bag right now, and she 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.120 did um and they tested it and they said, well, 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:41.040 thing's lousy with typhoid. They called her stool a factory 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.920 for typhoid. Yeah. And what they did was they said, 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:49.000 here's a deal. Give up cooking because that's how you're 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:53.240 transmitting this, and we'll let you go. And so did 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.520 they say that immediately from the article, but not necessarily 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:58.679 from the document. I think they initially offered her that 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:02.000 deal that she refused stwhich was one reason why she 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:04.680 was you know, lambasted in the in the public later 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:08.080 on in newspapers. But again, at the time, she had 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:12.119 managed to climb up out of the uh, you know, 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:14.399 poor conditions that she was living in an Ireland and 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:16.919 get a really good job and one that she was 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:19.840 good at and she didn't want to have to learn 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:22.840 something new and start over again. So at the time, 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:26.480 you know, like later on I can doll out some 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:28.840 of the blame on her, but early on she still 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:31.679 feels well, It's like, I'm not sick. This doesn't make 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:34.400 any sense. What does this healthy carrier thing? Yes, yeah, 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:37.520 she was not buying it at all, and she basically 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.000 came to believe that the public Health department had a 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:45.239 vendetta against her personally and felt quite persecuted. Um So 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:47.320 when she said no, she wasn't going to stop cooking, 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:48.960 they said, okay, well we're gonna take you to a 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:52.359 nice little island called North Brother Island. It's not a 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.800 nice island. Seven. They took her there in quarantine her. 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:58.679 Their North Brother Island is a or it was a 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:03.200 tuberculosis hospital, old quarantine quarantine hospital, i should say. And 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:07.000 she didn't have tuberculosis, and she wasn't even sick, she 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:09.320 didn't have any symptoms, and yet she was being kept 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:12.439 here against her will on North Brother Island, which you 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:17.880 sent a killer urban exploration photo spread that I want 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:21.679 everybody to go check out. It's creepy. It's on Gothamist 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:25.280 dot com and the g O T H A M 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:27.800 I S T. And it's titled a Trip to the 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:31.320 Abandoned North Brother Island. It is so cool. Yeah. Located 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.600 there was a Riverside hospital and initially there was nothing 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:39.240 there and they said, hey, the idea of island quarantines 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:40.880 was pretty popular at the time, so we should build 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.120 a hospital there so we can treat these people. But UM, 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:47.080 North Brother Island sort of gained a reputation over the 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:50.160 years because one it was I mean, it was much 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.359 more than tuberculosis. It was like later on it was 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:56.600 like heroin junkies were treated their syphilis like any kind 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:59.600 of nasty disease or addiction. They would dump you on 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:03.159 at Riverside Hospital. It was an asylum basically was it 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.320 was sort of like, uh, what's the DiCaprio, Shutter Island, 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.760 shutter Rock Island, um. But they had a hard time 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.520 staffing it with real doctors for a while because doctors 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:15.480 understandably didn't want to work there, so they had nurses 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:18.920 only for a time. Eventually there was a public campaign 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:22.080 to clean it up and to build better buildings and 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:25.359 change his rep which sort of worked, sort of didn't. 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:29.200 But UM in New York City at the time, especially 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:32.359 on the Lowery Side and where poor people lived, it 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.159 had a very bad reputation as you don't want to 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:37.000 go there, because you go there and you don't come back. 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.280 People were afraid of it. So that's where they send 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:44.360 this Mary Malin off to so and when she gets there, Um, 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:49.120 she starts trying to get out. She hired a escaping 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:54.600 right now, using legal channels, she um. She she hired 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:58.480 a lab, a private lab, and started sending them samples 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:00.919 of her stool and they were testing it and they 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.440 were not getting the same result. Her boyfriend would sneak 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:05.920 her poop to the lab and they weren't getting the 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:08.159 same results that the Public Health Department said that they 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:11.320 were getting. UM. As far as her being a factory 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:14.639 for typhoid, which could have been a false negative, right, 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:16.640 it could have been because they said that you don't 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:19.679 always find it in the testing, and that what they 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:22.720 said in the documentary. I believe so. But there was 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:24.720 a discrepancy and it was enough for her to get 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:27.720 her day in court New York Supreme Court. So she 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:31.520 makes her way. She's allowed to um to leave the 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:34.840 island to go for her court date. And basically the 0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:37.680 Public Health Department was like, look, she's a she's a 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:42.000 healthy carrier, and she's a public health and Mary's like 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:44.679 these people are holding me against my will, and the 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:47.080 New York Supreme Court said you're a public health threat. 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:49.320 Go back to North Brother Island. Yeah. And around the 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:52.520 same time it started getting newspaper coverage courtesy of William 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:57.280 Randolph Hurst, who may have financed her um law. That's crazy, 0:22:57.320 --> 0:23:00.480 her legal expenses. Imagine it was. It was great for papers. 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:02.200 So yeah, I could see him throwing a little money 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:05.520 towards it. But that's where she was dubbed typhoid Mary, 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:08.119 and that's where the public cement really swung, because she 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:13.879 was painted as someone who was willingly giving people typhoid fever. Well, no, 0:23:14.200 --> 0:23:16.880 she was. She was called typhoid Mary because they were 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:20.640 protecting her um her identity as well. That didn't work 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:24.680 too well. No, So Mary Um goes back to North 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:28.000 Brother Island and is there um for another Well, she 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:31.920 was there for three years total, I believe, and on 0:23:32.160 --> 0:23:34.800 in the third year, New York City got a new 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:41.000 health commissioner and he was not about basically squashing people's 0:23:41.000 --> 0:23:46.040 civil rights letterly so he not. He not only freed her, 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:48.639 he got her job. Yeah, and a lot of people 0:23:48.840 --> 0:23:52.080 while she was incarcerated, and it wasn't incarceration I guess 0:23:52.280 --> 0:23:54.880 um there were a lot of people that did cry 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:58.280 out for her release at times, um public officials even, 0:23:58.920 --> 0:24:01.720