Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health

This book spends one chapter on Mary Mallon’s life - and almost nothing from her perspective and the rest of the time talking about the political ramifications, public health ramifications, and the gradual effect on the hiv/aids crisis.

This is an interesting study but the author was quite repetitive and, IMO, the book could be about 2/3 of the length. Alternatively, she could have explored in greater depth how Ms. Mallon's confinement and the medical, legal, and social issues surrounding it, affected the treatment of other "carriers" in subsequent epidemics. The author also has a feminist take on this history and I think it led her to some conclusions regarding Ms. Mallon's treatment that cannot be fully supported because of the very small number of documented cases where others were treated differently. The author postulates that Ms. Mallon's fate was because of her gender, occupation, and immigrant status and that bias was involved. This may be the case, but the documentation is not all that clear and the author is reading into the language and questioning thoughts and feelings that may not have been present at the time. There are only a few other cases that she details and it is just tenuous at best to reach any firm conclusion in this matter. Rather than placing herself in the hearts and minds of the people at the time and on those terms, the author may be looking backwards with bias based on gender and race studies.Overall, it is a very good book and worth reading. The issues surrounding Ms Mallon must be understood and debated afresh with each new epidemic and generation.

Leavitt's, Typhoid Mary, is a rigorous historical analysis of "Typhoid Mary". The most interesting aspect of this book is the multiple (atleast 7) historical perspectives it provides regarding Mary Mallon. For those that don't remember "Typoid" Mary Mallon, she was a single, Irish immigrant woman who was a "healthy carrier" of Typhoid. She happened to be the first "healthy carrier" that was tracked in New York City and quarantined. She was confined to life imprisonment on an island off of NYC based on the evidence by the new emerging field of bacteriology. What is puzzling is the fact that social prejudices and expectations played the major factor in her "quarantine"; there were other healthy carriers whose offenses objectively were greater than Mary Mallon's, but they were not quarantined because of their social position. The value of this book is its historical analysis that aims to raise political, ethical, gender, social, science issues and values regarding Public Health Policy and the individual's rights. The book provides just enough interpretation to hint at the larger issues and does not provide the author's personal opinion about what should have been regarding the issues. Many of these issues are still relevant regarding the AIDS epidemics and other public health concerns. It is important for modern society to confront the conflict between broader health values of the public and the personal liberties of "victimized" individuals.The aim of this book is to allow readers to evaluate the consequences of what happened to transform Mary Mallon into the stigmatized "typhoid mary". This book is a must read for anyone that works in the field of public health and administration and is also a model for how historical phenomena and sensations should be analyzed.

This is a fantastic book. It has a balanced view of public health actions and policy. It will force you to think about our actions during any public health pandemic or communicable disease outbreak. You will attempt to balance actions taken for the public good and safety and an individual's liberty. This book should be required reading in our high schools and by all college students persuing careers in journalism. I highly recommend this book.

Depressing tale of extrajudicial captivity and oppression. “Science” run amok; public health folks with minimal knowledge judging an Irish immigrant old maid, a randy one, to be a menace. A tale for our time.

Since we are in the middle of the COVID pandemic, the book about problems with carriers of a disease & protecting the health of the public & rights of carriers, etc., this books gives insight on how it was handled in the past. Interesting, but seems to get bogged down in repetition.

I was hoping for a juicy, bacteriological whodunit, although we already know whodunit. This is more of an academic treatise on a public health issue from the early 20th century. Well-written, but delving into more detail than I would liked for personal reading. It is a bit dated, with many parallels drawn to HIV/AIDS, which was still fairly new and mysterious at the time the book was written. I am pleased, however, that a fellow nurse has published this book and from an academic standpoint, it does not disappoint. The ethical dilemma would have been the big story in today's world: can society take away the freedom of someone who has committed no crime? Or is being a 'carrier' of a disease a crime?

The book tells the story of Mary Mallon through the lenses of various disciplines. Her biography, personality and tragedy unfold throughout. It is an interesting book that has grave and important lessons for us in the age of Covid-19.