47. Soper, “Typhoid Mary,” p. 12.
48. Baker, Fighting for Life. Baker gave a press interview about her role in bringing Mallon into the hospital in the Brooklyn Eagle, May 8, 1932. There is no full-length biography of Baker (and we need one), but a good account of her life by someone who knew and worked with her is the entry by Leona Baumgartner in Notable American Women, ed. Edward T. James, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 85–86.
49. Baker, Fighting for Life, p. 13.
50. For an excellent discussion of the simultaneous democratic and elitist parts of the reform movements in this period, especially with regard to women, see Linda Gordon, Pitied but Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare 1890–1935 (New York: Free Press, 1994).
51. Baker, Fighting for Life, p. 48.
52. Ibid., pp. 57–58; see also p. 70.
53. Ibid., pp. 73–74.
54. Ibid., p. 74.
55. Ibid., p. 75.
56. Kraut, Silent Travelers, p. 97. Of all New York City typhoid carriers who died and were registered in or before 1940, 62.3 percent were foreign-born. See John C. Welton, John S. Marr, and Stephen M. Friedman, “Association Between Hepatobiliary Cancer and Typhoid Carrier State,” The Lancet 1, no. 8120 (1979): 791–94.
57. Kraut, Silent Travelers, p. 103. Kraut distinguishes Mary Mallon’s treatment from that of the Chinese in San Francisco during the 1900 outbreak of plague, in which the Chinese were singled out as a group. See also, Charles McClain, “Of Medicine, Race, and American Law: The Bubonic Plague Outbreak of 1900,” Law and Social Inquiry 13 (1988): 447–513. During the years of Mallon’s incarceration, the United States considered adding the category of healthy typhoid fever carrier to the list of reasons to exclude immigrants to this country. But in May, 1916, Surgeon General Rupert Blue wrote to John Shaw Billings, then deputy commissioner of the New York City Health Department, that the abilities of the immigration service were already taxed to capacity and that examination for typhoid carriers could be deferred. See Billings to Blue, May 26, 1916, and Blue to Billings, May 29, 1916, in the National Archives, RG 90 Records of the Public Health Service, Central File, 1897–1923, Box 459, Folder labeled 4141 1916.
58. In March, 1907, the same month Mary Mallon was apprehended, reporters from the New York Tribune uncovered in Katonah, in the Croton watershed, “two fine, big, rich cesspools overflowing . . . and emptying in a direct line for the city’s water supply” (March 31, 1907, p. 2). Investigators connected the cesspools to a camp of Italian laborers, who were constructing a new dam in the waterworks, a few of whom became infected with typhoid fever. “The greatest source of contamination for any community,” wrote one reporter, “is a colony of foreigners, who, with their unregulated and primitive ideas of hygiene, are breeders of every one of the most dangerous diseases that affect communities” (March 30, 1907, p. 1).
Today, our immigration policy explicitly excludes people who carry the HIV virus or who suffer from other infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, from immigrating to the United States. Haitians, most publicly, have been quarantined and excluded under this policy.
59. Cotils, then forty-two years old, and his wife, Felicia, age forty-eight, also a Belgian immigrant, lived at 242 Sixteenth Street with their son, Robert, then twelve and born in New York. U.S. Census, 1920 Soundex Index. See also the city directories, 1920, 1922–23, which list him as a baker at the above address. Alphonse Cotils is still listed as a baker at the Sixteenth Street address in the 1925 City Directory. He (and his wife) are still listed at that address in the 1933–34 City Directory, although that is a residential directory and does not specify businesses.
60. NYCDH, AR, 1922, p. 92. See also the New York Times, October 13, 1922, and January 21, 1923. Tony Labella’s name does not appear in the Minutes of the Board of Health in which the carriers for 1923 are listed. We do not know if this is because he absconded again. I could not find him in the city directory listings for these years. See also the Newark Evening News, October 13 and 14, 1922, p. 1.
61. At times, breadwinners received greater latitude in public health regulations. See, for example, a national study of laws and regulations controlling infectious diseases, in which researchers noted that “exceptions in favor of breadwinners . . . may be made by local health authorities.” J. W. Kerr and A. A. Moll, “Communicable Diseases: An Analysis of the Laws and Regulations for the Control Thereof in the United States,” Public Health Bulletin, no. 62 (July, 1913) (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1914), pp. 66–67. There was precedent for finding other means of support for healthy carriers instead of isolating them. At the Pasteur Institute in Paris, bacteriologist Ilya Metchnikoff had found employment in a library for a healthy carrier whose case interested him. See the New York Times, March 30, 1913. In 1918 New York state began subsidizing the incomes of those carriers who were having difficulty finding adequate employment outside the food industry. See Herman F. Senftner and Frank E. Coughlin, “Typhoid Carriers in New York State with Special Reference to Gall Bladder Operations,” American Journal of Hygiene 17 (1933): 711–23. The health department did ultimately retrain Mary Mallon, years after her second incarceration. She was employed in the hospital laboratory at Riverside Hospital, but not released from her isolation.
62. The story is reported in the New York Times, December 2, 1923, sec. 2, p. 2; the quotations are from this story.
63. Voigt is identified by his carrier card, which the New York City Department of Health submitted to the United States Public Health Service in 1916, along with twenty-three others, all twenty-four of which are now available at the National Archives. This submission was noted in NYCDH, AR, 1915, p. 52. A Richard Voigt, possibly the same man, although then seventy-three years old, is listed in the 1933–34 City Directory as a waiter at Hunts Point Palace, living in Ozone Park (p. 3372). Richard Voidt (different spelling) is listed as a “temporary carrier” in a 1916 letter in the health department files. (Chief of Division of Epidemiology to Director of the Bureau of Infectious Diseases, February 14, 1916; copy in Hoffman/Marr Collection.
Of the twenty-four carriers identified by the health department in 1916, when Voigt sought his medical treatment, only Mallon and Voigt (who was there only for one month) were then in city institutions. There were ten men and fourteen women listed; nine of them worked directly with food, another four were domestic workers, and one was a laborer. Four were inmates in mental hospitals; the others were employed in retail or their occupations were not known. Of the 106 carriers listed in 1923, two were residents of the Manhattan State Hospital, two (Mary Mallon and May Newton) of Riverside Hospital, two at Long Island State Hospital, and one at Long Island College Hospital; all others provided home addresses. Minutes, Board of Health of the City of New York, New York Municipal Archives, Box 3948, vol. 43.
64. See Will F. Clarke, “City Watches 208 Typhoid Carriers,” New York World, October 14, 1928, p. 6.
65. His first name was occasionally given as George; spelling of his last name varied, too, sometimes given as Morsch. The outbreak he was blamed for may have been in Park Slope in 1914, as the newspapers say, or it may have been an August, 1915, outbreak in Bay Ridge. It is listed as February, 1915, on the copy of the carrier card in the Hoffman/Marr Collection. See the New York Times, August 4 and 5, 1915. Fred Moersch is listed as a candy maker in the 1913 Brooklyn City Directory, at 577 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn. The health department card gives his address as 5606 Third Avenue, Brooklyn. I am grateful to Rebecca Walzer for her help in tracing Fred Moersch.
66. It is possible that over time (and by 1928 New York public health officials had had considerable time to think about and deal with healthy typhoid carriers) procedures were more matter-of-factly applied. Thus, health officials could lock up Moersch, even indefinitely, without stating any causes other than the bare fact of his causing an outbreak after being identified as a carrier. But this did not mean that they needed to lock up all carriers
who continued to pursue their trade. Cotils, for example, appears to have continued in his bakery even after the court case. Officials had the freedom to determine by whatever subjective means they wanted to apply who they would trust and who they would not. Some flouting of the law by some carriers could be allowed, but there would be limits. In Mary Mallon’s case these limits came into play sooner and lasted longer than they did for other carriers.
67. Memo from G. L. Nicholas to Director of the Bureau of Infectious Diseases, Department of Health, February 14, 1916. Copy in the files of Hoffman/Marr Collection. See also Moersch’s carrier card in the National Archives.
68. The word “official” was originally typed. It was crossed out with a pen, and the word “special” written above it.
69. Memo, Nicholas to Director, February 14, 1916.
70. Acting Director of the Bureau of Infectious Diseases to the Health Commissioner, February 15, 1916. Copy in the files of Hoffman/Marr Collection.
71. The treatment involved subcutaneous injections of autogenous vaccine. The results, according to the Chief of the Division of Epidemiology, were “nil.” (Chief, Division of Epidemiology to Director, Bureau of Infectious Diseases, February 14, 1916; copy in the Hoffman/Marr Collection.) Moersch may have been in Kingston Avenue Hospital in Brooklyn or at Riverside for a time. NYCDH, ARs from 1918 to 1922 indicate more than one carrier held on North Brother Island: in 1918, three carriers; in 1919, two; in 1920, several; in 1921, some taken but not held; in 1922, two. Moersch’s carrier card seems to indicate that his stools were examined at Kingston Avenue Hospital. He was detained at Riverside Hospital by official action of the Board of Health on October 23, 1928. See Minutes, Board of Health of the City of New York, Box 3955, vol. 63, October 23, 1928. He was released to his home in 1944 and he died in Kingston Avenue Hospital on August 15, 1947.
72. Chief, Division of Epidemiology to Director, Bureau of Infectious Diseases, February 14, 1916; Hoffman/Marr Collection. See the 1923 listing of registered healthy carriers. “Fred Morsch [sic] 244–5th Avenue, Brooklyn.” Minutes, Board of Health of the City of New York, Box 3948, vol. 43, May 24, 1923.
73. New York Times, October 7, 1928, indicated eighteen cases and on October 10 reported two more. The Daily Mirror reported fifty cases (October 8, 1928); the New York World claimed that sixty were ill in the neighborhood (October 7, 1928). The health department records do not allow a clear count. Moersch’s health department carrier card attributes 144 cases and 6 deaths to him. His stool samples showed an intermittent pattern of positives and negatives, similar to Mallon’s.
74. New York Times, October 7, 1928.
75. Herald Tribune, October 7, 1928, p. 10. See also New York World, October 7, 1928, p. 1, and Clarke, “City Watches,” p. 6.
76. According to the New York Times, October 10, 1928, “George Moersch, the typhoid carrier, . . . is now in Riverside Hospital.” See also New York Times, October 7, 1928, in which the reporter states that the carrier was isolated in Riverside Hospital. His carrier card indicates specimens were examined at Kingston Avenue Hospital. Unfortunately, the information on the card was grouped, making it impossible to know the exact dates or places of the laboratory tests. For example, we learn that between October, 1916, and May, 1934, eighty-four specimens were shown to be positive; between February, 1918, and February, 1934, forty-four stool cultures were found to be negative. Dates during the 1940s are more specific and indicate infrequent examination, suggesting he was not then hospitalized. The city directories for 1931 and 1933 list Fred Moersch as a “helper” at Riverside Hospital (1931, p. 687; 1933–34, p. 2336).
77. Emma Rose Sherman, Interview with author, New York City, July 16, 1993, followed up with telephone query, July 13, 1994. Sherman is very sure she would have known if another carrier were on the island, since she was responsible for the laboratory analyses. Even if his specimens had been sent downtown, and Sherman indicated they would have been sent to Willard Parker Hospital where better equipment was available, she would have been the one to label and send the specimens.
78. Unfortunately, much remains ambiguous about Moersch’s story. We do not know for sure if he stayed at Riverside after 1928 for treatment voluntarily or if he was kept against his will. This is a significant distinction, but the records do not allow us to answer it except by inference. Moersch’s employment status as a “hospital helper” is also vague. Was the job part of the agreement to isolate him so that he could continue to support his family? For more on his story, see chap. 6.
79. Moersch’s city employment record can be traced in the Civil Lists, available on microfilm at the New York Municipal Archives. He was first listed in the 1931–32 Civil List, with the date February 10, 1930, provided as his start of employment. He continues on the list until his death. His move to Kingston Avenue Hospital in 1944, with a home address in Brooklyn at 156 Butler Street, can be found in the 1944–45 Civil List.
80. Illinois ex rel. Barmore v. Robertson, 302 Ill. 422 (1922). Quotation from the Application for Rehearing, pp. 4, 9.
81. See, for example, the discussion in Baker, Fighting for Life, p. 75. A California study of healthy typhoid fever carriers revealed that in that state a full 25 percent of identified carriers did not cooperate with authorities. See the discussion in chap. 2 and M. Dorthy Beck and Arthur C. Hollister, Typhoid Fever Cases and Carriers: An Analysis of Records of the California State Department of Public Health from 1910 through 1959 (Berkeley: State of California Department of Public Health, 1962).
CHAPTER FIVE: “This Human Culture Tube”
1. M. J. Rosenau is quoted in the discussion section following William H. Park, “Typhoid Bacilli Carriers,” JAMA 51 (1908): 81–82, on p. 82. “Typhoid Mary” appears in print with the small “t” typhoid, although later it is more frequently capitalized. Warren Boroson also concluded that this was the first printed use of the term. See his “Learning from Typhoid Mary,” Science Digest 92 (1984): 91.
2. George C. Whipple, Typhoid Fever: Its Causation, Transmission and Prevention (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1908), p. 20. Park had reported twenty-six cases of typhoid traced to Mary Mallon, which was the number Soper used, even though Soper’s evidence pointed to only twenty-two (see chap. 1). Whipple changed the figure to twenty-eight, and the 1907 New York American story raised it to thirty-eight.
3. New York American, March 13, 1907, p. 4.
4. Ibid., April 2, 1907, p. 2.
5. Ibid.
6. New York World, April 1, 1907, p. 1. The New York Tribune ran front-page stories on a typhoid fever outbreak in Katonah in the Croton watershed at the end of March and through the first half of April, 1907, but never mentioned the issue of healthy carriers or “Mary Ilverson.” They did blame the outbreak on the Italian workers, described as “saturated with contagion. . . . the descendants of Caesar’s legions . . . have lost the hygienic instincts which the great master of the Roman empire inculcated” (April 12, 1907, p. 2).
7. Paul H. Weaver, “Selling the Story,” New York Times, Op-Ed, July 29, 1994, p. A13. See also his News and the Culture of Lying (New York: Free Press, 1994).
8. W. A. Swanberg, Citizen Hearst: A Biography of William Randolph Hearst (New York: Bantam Books, 1967), pp. 68, 192–93.
9. New York American, Sunday Magazine sec, June 20, 1909, pp. 6–7.
10. John Andrew Mendelsohn characterizes the news accounts as raising curiosity more than fear. I agree with him with regard to the July, 1909, stories of Mallon, but, as the following discussion indicates, I read the ensuing reports as raising a host of emotions. See his “Typhoid Mary: Medical Science, the State, and the ‘Germ Carrier,’ ” B.A. thesis, Harvard University, 1988.
11. “ ‘Typoid [sic] Mary’ Never Ill, Begs Freedom,” New York American, June 30, 1909, p. 1. The Sunday edition boasted almost 800,000 readers. For newspaper circulation, see N. W. Ayer & Sons American Newspaper Annual (Philadelphia: N. W. Ayer & Son, 1907), p. 605.
12. Terra Ziporyn, Disease in the Popula
r American Press (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1988). See, especially, chap. 3, “Typhoid Fever: A Disease of the Indifferent,” pp. 71–111. For Adams’s contributions, see, for example, Samuel Hopkins Adams, “Typhoid: An Unnecessary Evil,” McClure’s Magazine 25 (1905): 145–56. Paul De Kruif’s most famous book was The Microbe Hunters (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1926).
13. New York World, July 20, 1909, p. 18.
14. New York American, July 21, 1909, p. 2; and July 23, 1909, p. 5.
15. New York Tribune, July 17, 1909, p. 4.
16. New York Times, July 1, 1909, p. 8. See also July 17, 1909, p. 3.
17. (New York) Evening Sun, July 16, 1909, p. 10. See also June 29 and 30, 1909.
18. “ ‘Typhoid Mary’ in Cry for Liberty,” New York Herald, June 30, 1909.
19. New York Call, June 30, 1909, p. 2. See also July 17, 1909, p. 1. For other newspaper accounts, see New York Evening Post, July 16, 1909, p. 1; and the Brooklyn Eagle, June 29 and July 16, 1909.
20. Ayer American Newspaper Annual, p. 629, provides the circulation figures. The World, July 20, 1909, p. 18. On Pulitzer’s influence on American newspapers, see W. A. Swanberg, Pulitzer (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1967) and George W. Juergens, Joseph Pulitzer and the New York World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966).
21. New York Call, February 21, 1910, p. 1.
22. New York Times, February 21, 1910, p. 18. See also New York Herald, February 20, 1910, p. 1; New York Daily Tribune, February 21, 1910, p. 5; and New York American, February 21, 1910, p. 6.
23. “ ‘Typhoid Mary’ at Large,” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 162 (March 3, 1910): 294.
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