How Typhoid Mary and Her Famous Ice Cream Wreaked Havoc Across NYC

Always Wash Your Hands!

Mary is known as the first asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever in the United States, and it wasn’t very difficult to figure out how she spread the deadly disease to countless people. Typhoid usually spreads because the person infected doesn’t follow basic hygienic rules, such as washing their hands after going to the bathroom.

/human-stories/how-typhoid-mary-and-her-famous-ice-cream-wreaked-havoc-across-nyc/img/TyphoidMary08_MobileImageSizeReigNN.jpg

Photo by Granger / Shutterstock

So, when a household cook, who touches everyone’s food, doesn’t wash her hands, it’s a recipe for disaster. Well, that’s exactly what happened in Mary’s case. Whether it was intentional or not, investigators believed that Mary didn’t wash her hands before making and serving food to her employers. But was all of Mary’s food infected with this deadly disease?

© 2019 History by Day all rights reserved