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My Good Babushka

(2,710 posts)
Wed Feb 11, 2015, 07:38 AM Feb 2015

Typhoid Mary



Typhoid Mary was an Irish cook who went from household to household spreading typhoid fever in the 1900s. She was responsible for at least 50 deaths. Mary was tracked down and quarantined in the Bronx. She vowed never to cook again, only to work as a laundress. She was released in 1910, changed her name to Mary Brown and immediately got a job as a cook. She spread typhoid fever for another five years, until an outbreak of 25 cases in 1915 at Sloan Hospital for Women led authorities to Mary. She spent the remaining 23 years of her life in quarantine.
(Typhoid Mary, in the first bed)
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