The Archive · March 1915 · New York

Typhoid Mary: may a city lock up a healthy woman?

What do you do with her?

The case

Told from where the person who decided stood. In the game each line is written into a drawing as you tap.

Mary Mallon is a cook, and she is perfectly healthy. But typhoid follows her from kitchen to kitchen. She carries it without being ill.
In 1907 the city held her on an island for three years. It let her go in 1910 on one promise: never to cook again.
Now there is typhoid in a maternity hospital: 25 people ill, two dead. The cook, working under another name, is Mary.
She has broken no law that anyone has tried her for. She does not believe she is dangerous. You decide what happens to her.

Free her, and watch.Another trade, and regular checks. She gave her word once before.
Hold her.On the island, as long as she carries it. She is not ill, and she has not been tried. It may be for life.

Make the call in the game Free. No account. Two minutes.

The city held her, on North Brother Island, without a trial.

For the rest of her life. Mary Mallon lived on the island for 23 more years, until she died in 1938.

Other healthy carriers were found in the same years. Some of them were held for a time.

All of them were released.

Source: Pusey, A. (2020). March 20, 1907: Authorities quarantine “Typhoid Mary” Mallon. ABA Journal. www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/quarantine_typhoid_mary_mallon

History is not an answer key. This page says what was done and what came of it. Whether it was right is the question the case leaves with you.

The same kind of question runs through The Gate (Who decides for them?), one of the nine journeys of the game.

All the rooms: the case files