Typhoid Mary on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States was put in quarantine for the second time, where she would remain for the rest of her life, on this day in 1915. Typhoid Mary, whose real name is Mary Mallon, was an Irish-born cook believed to have infected 53 people with typhoid fever, three of whom died, and she was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the disease. There were only a few others with typhoid fever in history who did not have symptoms. Mary's story is a rare example of someone who should be quarantined while exhibiting no symptoms. 

As one doctor wrote to Walter Block last year: "As a physician I’ll allow that forced isolation and even, compulsory directly observed treatment may have a justifiable role in very limited circumstances, as for example when an actively contagious individual has been found to deliberately and repeatedly sicken other individuals with grave outcome. This may have been the case with Mary Mallon, and if so, her misconduct could have been addressed through judicial procedures. I hardly believe this to be the case with C O V I D 1 9 or any other epidemic I’ve dealt with in 40 years of practice." Thinking that something is thought to be serious "is insufficient reason to forcibly deny an individual their due process. It is widely thought that guns and bullets are the cause of civil unrest. Cars are related to thousands of deaths annually. Should we forcibly disarm the entire citizenry, or ban all motor vehicles or any number of other risky activities that may be widely thought to threaten ‘the public health'? I think not. My point is that the civil response to any threat or contagion is a matter of the degree of the danger and should be a rational nuanced response. The political response to C O V I D 1 9 including mass quarantine has been anything but rational and nuanced, and the more serious danger is the deliberate manipulation by the state of a widely feared but mostly benign infection to crush a population into submission. Curiously, the proven threat of  biological weapons research seems to rate low on the state’s danger scale. Rather than permanently quarantining this loathsome and sickening enterprise, it is surreptitiously encouraged and funded or concealed off shore."

https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/typhoid-mary-2/

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