Mary Mallon's Trail Of Typhoid

The concept of a “carrier” first emerged with typhoid fever with Mary Mallon in 1907. Mary Mallon was a working as a cook in her employer’s household, Charles Henry Warren, in New York. Working as a cook allow the bacteria, Salmonella typhi, to be transmitted to the household members through the food she was handling. George Sober, a sanitary engineer, was brought in to find the cause of illness and had proposed that it was the ingestion of freshwater clams. This was later disproven by the questioning of the infected individuals having denied they had eaten the clams. Sober then moved his suspicions onto Mary Mallon, believing she was spreading the disease as a carrier. This was a new concept at the time and was not readily accepted, especially

Who is Mary Mallon and how does she fit in to the story of typhoid fever? First, we have to answer the question “What is Typhoid Fever?” Typhoid fever is caused by a salmonella typhi bacteria(this bacteria only lives in humans). Mary Mallon carried typhoid fever but never actually got the disease. Mary Mallon (also known as Typhoid Mary) infected 51 people and caused 3 deaths with typhoid fever. People who recover from typhoid continue to have the bacteria in their intestinal tracts and gallbladders for years. Typhoid effects 26 million people or more each year in more developed countries but in undeveloped countries 21.5 million are infected each year.

Another theme is being abandoned. She was left at the altar and for years wondered why she was not good enough to marry. The final theme is mortality. Granny kept saying how she did not fear death but towards the end of her life she felt as if she was not done living life, yet time had run out. The story had some humorous moments but the jolting of thoughts got to be a bit annoying. After I read the story, it made sense to have it written that way. After all, she was a sick old woman who was dying and at that age, it is expected for thoughts to be mixed up. I at first was confused as to who was talking and thought maybe the story was told in the first person but as I kept reading I realized it was not. Although it is a little weird not to know who is telling this story, it may have been beneficial because then we can then get a clear understanding of how Granny was feeling without being interrupted by someone else’s personal input. The line in the story that says, “She could not remember any other sorrow because this grief wiped them all away” makes me feel that it may have been mortality as the narrator, which I think would have been neat.

While he feels the fear of death on the way, he ultimately achieves the goal of going through the tunnel. However, he never tells his mother this success. In the story, the process of growing up to an adolescent is compared to a trial of passing through a tunnel. Margaret Drabble says that the story is “a breathtaking description of a young boy on a Mediterranean summer holiday who dares himself to be reborn into the adolescent tribe by diving deeply and dangerously through an underwater channel” (Drabble 1). Going through the tunnel is a rite of passage for Jerry to become an adolescent and it must be accomplished by himself without the help of his mother because his growth to an adolescent means that he is independent from his mother. This essay examines the tunnel which symbolizes obstacles Jerry has to overcome to grow up and his growth to an adolescent in Doris Lessing’s “Through the

Judith Walzer Leavitt's Typhoid Mary details the life of Mary Mallon, one of the first known carriers of the typhoid disease. Leavitt constructs her book by outlining the various perspectives that went into the decisions made concerning Mary Mallon's life. These perspectives help explain why she was cast aside for most of her life and is still a household catchphrase today. Leavitt paints a picture of the relationship between science and society and particularly shows how Mallon was an unfortunate example of how science can be uneven when it is applied to public policy. This paper will focus on the subjectivity of science and its' interaction with social factors which allowed health officials to “lock[ing] up one person

Throughout the story Through the Tunnel, the most important theme that recurs is self determination. The boy in the story, Jerry, has demonstrated this self determination by pushing himself through tough situations. One of these situations was when Jerry saw the French boys playing in the ocean. In the text, it said, “To be with them, of them, was a craving that filled his whole body.” (244) This quote proves his determination because later on in the story, he then swam toward them. Eventually, they started playing, and the boys yelled cheerful greetings at him. That’s when Jerry knew that he was welcomed in. Without his determination in this scene, Jerry wouldn't have been able to play with the boys. Jerry demonstrates self determination in

In “Through the Tunnel,” Doris Lessing presents water as a deadly challenge to the boy, Jerry. He experiences two of the listed symptoms after freediving; “That night, his nose bleed badly. For hours he had been underwater, learning to hold his breath, and now he felt weak and dizzy” (Lessing 405) and “... his face turned up to the air. He was gasping like a fish. He felt he would sink now and drown; he could not swim the few feet back to the rock” (Lessing 407). Water challenges him on his quest to adulthood and Jerry then experiences rebirth as a man; water is symbolizing

One way she conveys the theme is when the main character moves from a small town in the south to a big city in the north. When she came back she found out how different the two worlds really where were. How one was segregated and one is not. This shows how she experienced what it is like living is a desegregated place and what felt like normal turned bad. She got older and more experienced so her views changed about her home town.

For example, “The Story of an Hour” tells about a woman who is married to a man who is not malicious nor an abusive husband but she simply did not want to be married or “tied down”. Kate is inspired by the idea of giving Mrs. Louise Mallard the opportunity to live her life her own way in this short story. By realizing what the theme is in the short story, the reader will have a better understanding of the whole passage and the issues that tie it all together in to one category.

Salmonella is an important bacterial genus which causes one of the most common forms of food poisoning worldwide. Throughout history typhoid fever – caused by Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi – triggered many dire outbreaks, and people eventually recognized the link between this disease and contaminated food or beverages.

Important Themes, or aspects of the human experience that the author addresses through the events of the

After he washed his face, the woman started to prepare a small meal for the two of them. I believe the boy instantly felt both sorry and thankful because the boy asked if she needed him to go to the store. She said no, but then in a way she asked if he wanted anything. His response was “That will be fine…” This makes me believe he was thankful because he was content with what he already had in front of him. Also, he ate an average amount not wanting to be greedy, but she encouraged him to eat more. He was beyond thankful for what she had just done for him. In the beginning, the boy was trying to steal her money to purchase some blue suede shoes. In the end, she gives him money to get those. The boy didn’t have time to react to what she had given him. His actions showed how he was thankful. “The boy wanted to say something else other than ‘Thank you, m’am…’” Unfortunately, he did not get the chance to show her the respect he gained for a woman he had only known for less a couple hours.

The short story, Through the Tunnel is about an eleven-year-old, English boy named Jerry. Jerry goes on vacation in a foreign country with his mother, a worrisome widow. During the first day of his stay, Jerry and his mother go to the beach. When Jerrys mother catches him staring elsewhere, she asks if he wants to go somewhere else. Though he longs to go the bay, he feels guilt for leaving his mother and goes with her instead. The next day, when his mother asks the same question again, he decides to go to the bay. When he arrives, he meets some local boys who he desires to be with. The boys wave at Jerry, but soon realize he is a foreigner and proceed with their own games. Jerry watched as the boys took turns diving into the water. After a

Throughout one’s life, that individual learns rather valuable lessons that he can carry with him for future generations. These lessons can be acquired through personal experience or through pieces of literature that he or she may have encountered. In these pieces of literature, the lessons obtained are generally associated with theme. Theme is an issue of literature that tends to come up after a reader has concluded a form of writing. These forms of writing usually consist of short stories or poems. Theme is an issue due to the fact there are various ways to interpret what a short story or poem is attempting to convey as the theme. Accomplishing what the true theme of a piece of art is is extremely puzzling, and the people with the responsibility of completing this task are left with ambivalent minds. This is especially true in Maxine Kumin’s poem entitled “Woodchucks”. In this poem, the narrator is fed up with woodchucks destroying his or her garden so the narrator pursues a means of killing them. He or she kills all but one. Day after day, he or she waits for the

“He was at the end of what he could do… he feebly clutched at the rocks in the dark, pulling himself forward, leaving the brief space of sunlit water behind. He felt he was dying. He was no longer conscious” (Lessing 5). “Through the Tunnel,” written by Doris Lessing, follows the summer of a young eleven-year-old English boy named Jerry. For many years, Jerry and his mother visited this beach, getting to know many of the other families there. One year, however, Jerry had begun to lose interest in the beach; he wanted to explore the nearby rugged and wild bay, where the older boys played. He was no longer interested in the children his age on the beach; he wanted to be more mature like the older boys on the wild bay, where they played more reckless games. The older boys dived into the water and through an underwater tunnel to reach the shore, requiring much skill and perseverance that Jerry did not have. Jerry, not being able to accomplish the feat, made a fool of himself and acted like a child in front of the boys, making them go away; this fueled Jerry’s passion to accomplish going through the tunnel before his vacation was over. The setting of “Through the Tunnel” is influential in representing Jerry’s transition from a child to a young man with the beach representing his childhood, the wild bay representing his adolescence, and the tunnel representing him becoming a mature young man.