Typhoid Mary

Film Review: Typhoid Mary

This case of Typhoid Mary is one that is importantly rooted in a time where the Progressive movement was in motion, with the objective to apply scientific approaches to social problems. The case involved a woman that was highly suspected to be the root cause of many cases of Typhoid fever in many of the families in which she had served and cooked for. The case became apparent, and of high interest when 6 members of a family, in which Mary was cooking for, became infected with the disease while vacationing in a completely Typhoid-devoid island of Oyster Bay. The case was especially important as it both was a breakthrough in determining the possible root causes of the disease, and its possible implications of spreading the disease into a different class of wealthier people.

It could be argued that Mary was singled out due to two reasons: the first being more of a scientific response, and the second being more of a sociocultural response. From the perspective of a scientists (like George Soper) the infected family in Oyster Bay was an easy case to pinpoint a “patient zero”. A host for a virus that can be pinpointed as a cause for the spread of a disease is critical to begin the process of determining of a reason for the disease, and a way to cure it – especially important if the patient is a healthy carrier (which Mary was). On that basis, it could be argued that Mary was already being unreasonable in not being compliant with George’s initial requests to test her stool/urine to determine a possible cause for the disease. The resistance Mary exhibited were probably due to the new practice of addressing problems with scientific reason, the rise of progressivism, and George’s inexperience in asking for assistance from the patient.

The second reason being that Mary was singled out as she was imposing a possible health risk to families of high wealth. She was singled out and forced to give samples of her urine/stool even though thousands had the disease elsewhere, especially amongst the poor. This viewpoint was probably shared with Mary herself as she was quite resistant to any forms of treatment, diagnoses, or anything really related to addressing the disease. It was possible that social stratification and the social status of those who were at risk in being infected (the rich class) played a part in the sudden urgency in treating Mary. As the disease seemed already to be widespread in the low-class.

In regards to personal opinion, it is of mine that singling her out was justified - an easier statement to have now that we have the benefit of hindsight and microscopic images of bacteria. It was not as clear back then, when microscopic images were not widely available and accessible to the general public as it is now. The difference in the information we have now compared to then is of vast difference, and could explain Mary’s resistance in hearing a scientific response that her body was carrying microscopic germ particles in her body, invisible to her naked eye. Even during that time, however, I believe it was rational to focus on her as a case study for the benefit of curing/learning about the disease. As almost every single one of the families she took care of (more specifically: cooked for), and the case was isolated in a region where no others had been infected: then it is quite clear that she has some sort of relation to the spread. Rarely in medicine are you presented such an obvious reason for the disease, and it is for that reason that it was the most justified in the risks that she posed to the general public.