Typhoid Mary Captive To The Public's Health Summary

Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public’s Health tells the story of Mary Mallon and what she had to go through at the beginning of the twentieth century. Typhoid Mary has “become a metaphor for a dangerous person who should be reviled and avoided (Leavitt).” Judith Walzer Leavitt, the author, is a professor of the history of medicine and women's studies at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and an author of several books (Judith). She uses Mary’s story to show the different perspectives of people who were affected by her disease. She shows how the public, law, medical professions, and Mary herself were influenced by this discovery. Leavitt’s analysis also shows how challenging it could be to find the balance between public health and an individual’s rights. The perspectives and the conflict between the public vs. the individual come together to tell the story of Mary Mallon.
Mary Mallon, also known as Typhoid Mary, was an …show more content…
Although the diseases that threaten us today are HIV, Hanta, Ebola, Sabia, and Lyme Disease. “The social and public policy dilemma Mary Mallon’s story posed was addressed repeatedly in the 1980s, as writers tried to help people come to terms with new health dangers and dilemmas (Leavitt).” HIV was being spread rapidly without any way to treat it. People were not sure how to contain the spread of these diseases. “Early experience with HIV infection indicates that American public health has not yet moved very far away from some of the social insensitivities evident in Mallon’s day (Leavitt).” The government will always choose the protection and health of the public over the rights of an infected individual, and there will always be a need for an infectious disease to be contained. Leavitt also suggests how different Mary’s life would have been if she had been treated with the dignity that she deserved. Now she will live forever as Typhoid Mary, the transmitter of the