Typhoid oy vey

I am ready to admit something absoutely mortifying: I had no idea that people still died from typhoid.

In my head, it's an old-timey disease, the sort of thing that's totally horrific, of course, but that really isn't a risk anymore. Like smallpox or polio, it's something characters in novels get but people in real life just . . . don't.

Holy crap am I wrong.

So, somewhere in the vicinity of 17 million people get typhoid per year, though only about 400 Americans. (This either exonerates me from not thinking of typhoid as much of an issue, damns me for being pitifully America-centered, or both. I lean towards both.) This is largely an issue of clean drinking water, and in fact US typhoid levels declined almost to nil (well, to 400 per year, including travelers) quite quickly following the advent of chlorination. Interestingly enough, there are rumors floating around the internet (though, of course, there are rumors floating around the internet about pretty much anything) suggesting a link between cystic fibrosis and typhoid resistance, but that's really beyond the scope of where I'd like to go right now.

Regardless, in the 30 seconds 'til I go to bed (it's been a busy day today, including a Papier Mache Incident in my fourth grade class, and I just need to get off to sweet, sweet sleep), the thing I've spent all day thinking about:

The CDC suggests that somewhere around 5% of typhoid patients (who recover) can become asymptomatic carriers. This is bizarre and fascinating to me, and leads me to Typhoid Mary, and not just because everyone loves a scandal (except the people whom it hurts). She infected 20-some people and, at least in part because she was a woman and Irish in a time when it was good to be neither, was locked away in quarantine. (Should she have been? Debatable. If the CDC numbers are correct, which I have no reason to doubt, then there must have been tens if not hundreds of other carriers walking around New York in the early 1900s. That said, things get weirder.) Mary got out of the hospital (on North Brother Island, which should maybe become a Handbook field trip) after 3 years, swore to avoid all food service jobs, and then, promptly, got a gig as a cook and infected another 27 people.

At this point, the public health authorities declared enough enough, restored Mary to quarantine, and kept her there for more than twenty years.

Now, I'm a little torn on this. On one hand, was she dangerously irresponsible? Absolutely. But was she the only one? Not hardly. 1910's New York Times ran an article about Typhoid John, a mountain guide who had infected more than 100 people. However, the article informs us that there is "no law by which 'Typhoid John' can be isolated." Oops. Someone should have told Mary. The authorities let TJ go free.

I'd like to look into this more and to spend some more time thinking about it, but I think I need to cut things off for tonight. I meant only to talk about infection rates, not about illegal imprisonment.