Detroit's Typhoid Mary

Detroit's worst typhoid epidemic in ten years began last month after a wedding reception at the Highland Park Baptist Church. Within three weeks, 22 guests fell ill, one died. Most of their doctors failed to diagnose the illness as typhoid (a common error). When typhoid was recognized, Health Director Dr. Charles G. Barone suspected that a typhoid carrier, infected but personally immune, was to blame.

His search narrowed down to a member of the Ladies' Aid Society who had served food at the reception. Barone found that a year before she had also served at a church supper where three people had contracted typhoid. Her granddaughter had the disease after visiting her. A boarder came down with it in 1936. She was then suspected, but no infection could be found. This time tests were positive.*

Detroit's carrier can probably be cleansed of her infection, said Dr. Barone, by removal of the gall bladder, where typhoid germs lurk. (Another possibility: a drug called iodophthalein.) New York City's celebrated carrier, "Typhoid Mary" (Mary Mallon), stubbornly refused to have her gall bladder purged, spent most of her last 30 years either locked up or eluding police to take jobs as a cook. She infected some 51 people, and died in 1938 --of a stroke.

*She remained anonymous like most of the thousands of typhoid carriers known to health officials all over the U.S. (several hundred are known and at large in New York City alone).

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