“TYPHOID MARY.”

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 226, 23 August 1929, Page 7

“TYPHOID MARY.”

CHRONIC CARRIER OF DISEASE. (By Telegraph—Special to Standard). AUCKLAND, Aug. 22. The story of “Typhoid Mary,” a chronic typhoid carrier, who was the cause of 1350 people contracting typhoid in New York, was related by Mr Hugli.es, medical officer of health, in a lecture on “How to Prevent Disease,” at the Auckland Institute. Her first exploit was the modest one of infecting 26 people in different families to which she acted as cook in the course of five years in the American city. She was then detected and placed under observation in hospital tor three years. On leaving the institution she changed her name and obtained employment as a cook intone of the largest New York hospitals, where she had the distinction of passing the infection on to 25 doctors and nurses. An investigation then showed that she had been instrumental in infecting the water supply as well, giving typhoid to no less than 1300 people. There was a case in Dunedin, Dr. Hughes added, of a man who discharged typhoid germs for 39 years. He spent his latter years on the quarantine station, where he died recently.