There's Something About Mary

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2020

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When a cook who carried typhoid fever refused to stop working, despite showing no symptoms, the authorities forcibly quarantined her for nearly three decades. Perfect villain or just a woman scapegoated because of her background? What the story of Typhoid Mary tells us about journalism, the powers of the state, and the tension between personal responsibility and personal liberty.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's probable that Mary Mellon is a prisoner for life, and yet she has committed no crime,
0:12.1	has never been accused of an immoral or rickid act, and has never been a prisoner in any
0:17.6	court.
0:19.9	It was in the middle of an outbreak, and though she had no symptoms, no fever, no chills,
0:25.6	no rash, Mary Mellon had been classified as patient
0:29.9	zero.
0:33.3	When I first came here, I was so nervous and almost prostrated with grief and trouble.
0:47.4	So now she sat in an isolated cottage on an island, surrounded by other infected people
0:54.8	confused about what was happening to her.
0:58.7	There was never any effort by the board authority to do anything for me, accepting to cast
1:06.5	me on the island and keep me a prisoner without being sick or needing medical treatment.
1:15.1	She became a sort of experiment and felt like one.
1:19.2	Why should I be banished like a leper and compelled to live in solitary confinement?
1:25.6	She didn't know if she'd ever make it off that island.
1:29.0	While Mary sees these unfortunate victims of various diseases come on the hospital
1:33.4	boat and in due time returning their homes and friends, Mary stays on forever.
1:45.5	The virus is very difficult to contain.
1:48.4	Many experts studying the pandemic have said one reason for that is because of silent
1:52.5	spreaders.
1:53.5	The country tense moments caught on camera as more businesses enforce new rules to stop
1:58.8	the spread of the country.
1:59.8	This person who had COVID-19 did not know they had to wear or not to wear one of these
	...

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