Typhoid Mary [Kindle Edition]
Author: Anthony Bourdain | Language: English | ISBN: B0045I6TQM | Format: PDF, EPUB
Typhoid Mary
Download books file now Typhoid Mary for everyone book mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link
Download books file now Typhoid Mary for everyone book mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link
In 1906, at a prosperous Long Island summer home, a family falls ill and typhoid is diagnosed. When Dr George Soper is called in to find the source of the contagion, he notices that the household cook has gone missing. She is Mary Mallon, the woman who would become known as Typhoid Mary.
Soper, sanitary engineer turned sleuth, sees Mary as his Moriarty. He finds there has been an outbreak of typhoid fever in every household she has worked in over the past decade. Mary is a ‘carrier', a seemingly healthy individual who passes on her dangerous germs, sometimes with fatal consequences. Now Soper must hunt the cook down before she can infect more unsuspecting victims. A poor Irish immigrant, Mary refuses to believe that she can harbor typhoid in her strong and healthy body, and she doesn't intend to go quietly.
In this fascinating true story, Anthony Bourdain follows Mary through the kitchens of New York, putting a human face to a poor, desperate cook, and an inadvertant killer, and, with his signature swagger, captures an era and a life.
Direct download links available for Typhoid Mary [Kindle Edition]- File Size: 280 KB
- Print Length: 161 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1582341338
- Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (October 17, 2010)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B0045I6TQM
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
- Lending: Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #68,367 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Americas > United States > 19th Century > Turn of the Century
- #15 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Medical eBooks > Special Topics > History
- #39 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Regional U.S. > Mid Atlantic
Short, sweet, and somewhat hilarious rendition for one of our better known epidemiological chapters in american history. I was taken aback by the negative comments of the other readers of this book and I am afraid I do not agree. Having a deep and abiding interest in epidemiology and public health as far as the deaf and disability communities are concerned, there is more than one way to approach a story like this. Probably the first time anyone has taken Mary's point of view on this whole fiasco.
Bourdain didn't mean for this to be a textbook on public health. It is a story about a cook, somewhat along the lines of a modern Chaucer (which is high praise from me, since I love Chaucer's viginettes about characters during the Middle Ages). I realized this going into this book, but perhaps others were disappointed thinking they were going to receive something delving into more of the history and less of an individual biography.
This book is worth the short time it takes to read it. It's one of those books that makes you snort with laughter, and then feel guilty about it since many people got sick and a few died from Mary's little forays into the hot and dirty kitchens of New York at the turn of the century. Bourdain explains how Mary must have seen this invasion of her privacy from what little information provided by her and those who knew her. It should not be surprising that she had a bit of a 'persecution complex'. With all of our emphasis on individual rights and protection from Big Brother, you would think more readers would understand Mary's feelings about her situation?
Bourdain certainly has a unique view for what happened. I think he shows immense talent and compassion, for presenting this story in a different way.
This book adds much useful and interesting color to the history of Ms. Mary Mallon, the woman who became known as Typhoid Mary. Mr. Bourdain takes his experiences as a chef and extends them into imagining what life was like for Ms. Mallon. He also tries to look at circumstances from her perspective, rather than the authorities who hounded her.
If you don't know the story, you should be aware that Ms. Mallon was a cook. She was a poor, single Irish immigrant who had to depend on her own efforts to make her way. Apparently, she was an above average cook, because she had an easier time staying employed than most cooks of the wealthy did at that time.
In the early 1900s, typhoid fever was a common disease. About one in ten who contracted it died. There was no treatment for it. You just got very sick. Antiobiotics and vaccines eventually became available, but not until the 1940s.
Some people who have the disease never get very sick, but never totally get over it. They continue to carry the bacteria in their intestinal system. The discharge of that system can then cause healthy people to become ill if they ingest the bacteria in their water or food. Cooked food is not usually a source, but ice cream can be. Many of Ms. Mallon's diners fondly remembered her peach ice cream.
She was discovered as the possible source when a wealthy family in Oyster Harbor came down in typhoid in 1904. The investigator looked into the fact that the cook had disappeared. Checking her employment history with an agency, he found that every family she had cooked for during the past several years had experienced typhoid. A new scientific theory was developing that some people could be continuous carriers. He wanted to find her and test her blood.
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