The other night I was watching the TV miniseries: The Stand. This was an interesting adaptation of a book by Stephen King.
The first portion of the book is about an engineered disease that wipes out over ninety-nine percent of the worlds human population and a bunch of animals as well.
The thought of a illness as virulent as the 'superflu' described in the work kept me up many nights growing up.
Fast forward to modern day.
There was a cruise that encounters engine problems stranding about four thousand people aboard. Somehow the mention of 'Typhoid Mary' is mentioned.
Upon further inspection, the inspiration for the term is a middle-aged female cook who is a carrier of typhoid who did not present any symptoms of the disease. Who was she?
She was a carrier of a disease most commonly associated with contaminated food and liquid ingestion, she worked as a cook, she refuses to accept that she has typhoid because she has no symptoms, she finds handwashing not practical when cooking...
As expected, every time she was hired she spread outbreaks of typhoid leaving misery and death in her wake. The Feds have to step in and force quarantine her for three years.
She is released under the condition that she agree to change professions and practice good hygiene to prevent further spread of Typhoid.
She gets out and decides to change her name and become a cook...
She is quarantined for the rest of her life, has a stroke that paralyzes her , and dies of Pneumonia.
In a way it's funny because she got poetic justice. What bonehead would go through such lengths of criminal negligence to bring plagues with them?
It's kinda sad from her perspective.
You're a middle aged woman who fails at being a cook, let alone a decent human to boot. The feds lock you up for the good of public health where you subsequently stroke out and die of pneumonia. Not to forget about her legacy as "Typhoid Mary."
"So horribly sad. How is it I feel like laughing" -North by Northwest
The first portion of the book is about an engineered disease that wipes out over ninety-nine percent of the worlds human population and a bunch of animals as well.
The thought of a illness as virulent as the 'superflu' described in the work kept me up many nights growing up.
Fast forward to modern day.
There was a cruise that encounters engine problems stranding about four thousand people aboard. Somehow the mention of 'Typhoid Mary' is mentioned.
Upon further inspection, the inspiration for the term is a middle-aged female cook who is a carrier of typhoid who did not present any symptoms of the disease. Who was she?
She was a carrier of a disease most commonly associated with contaminated food and liquid ingestion, she worked as a cook, she refuses to accept that she has typhoid because she has no symptoms, she finds handwashing not practical when cooking...
As expected, every time she was hired she spread outbreaks of typhoid leaving misery and death in her wake. The Feds have to step in and force quarantine her for three years.
She is released under the condition that she agree to change professions and practice good hygiene to prevent further spread of Typhoid.
She gets out and decides to change her name and become a cook...
She is quarantined for the rest of her life, has a stroke that paralyzes her , and dies of Pneumonia.
In a way it's funny because she got poetic justice. What bonehead would go through such lengths of criminal negligence to bring plagues with them?
It's kinda sad from her perspective.
You're a middle aged woman who fails at being a cook, let alone a decent human to boot. The feds lock you up for the good of public health where you subsequently stroke out and die of pneumonia. Not to forget about her legacy as "Typhoid Mary."
"So horribly sad. How is it I feel like laughing" -North by Northwest
