Typhoid Mary

November 11, 1938 - Mary Mallon died on this day. History remembers her as "Typhoid Mary," who through her work as a cook infected over 50 people with typhoid fever. 3 of them were confirmed to have died, but conservative estimates are that many more victims were unaccounted for and her death toll was probably much higher.

Typhoid fever is a very infectious disease spread through contact with food or water that has been handled by a carrier. 

The worst part is that Mary knew she was infecting people, but she refused to seek medical help or work with authorities to address the risk. Instead she bounced from one wealthy family to another, working as a cook until enough people around her started falling ill. Then she's leave abruptly without a forwarding address and find a new, unsuspecting family.

The police eventually caught up with her and she spent the last 23 years of her life in isolation at Riverside Hospital in New York.