Typhoid victims locked up for life in mental institution

[emad]

Typhoid victims locked up for life in mental institution
More than 40 women typhoid sufferers were locked up for life in a mental asylum to prevent them spreading the disease, according to newly-found records.

By Graham Tibbetts
Last Updated: 4:02PM BST 28 Jul 2008


The patients, all women, were taken to Long Grove in Epsom, Surrey, between 1907 and its closure in 1992.

Although they were sane when admitted many went mad as a result of their incarceration, nursing staff said.

Virtually all had recovered from typhoid but were still considered a public health risk because they continued to excrete the bacterium.

Most of the institution's archives were destroyed after it closed but researchers at the Surrey County Council History Centre in Woking found two volumes of records in the derelict building.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2465208/Typhoid-victims-locked-up-for-life-in-mental-institution.html

[enlightenment]

1. Interesting that the first public reports about

Mary Mallon, "Typhoid Mary" were published in 1906. I wonder if there was a connection between the reports of her "healthy" infectious state and the fear that these women would continue to infect?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Typhoid Mary was locked up because she refused to stop working as a cook

Now in my opinion, it was probably because it was the only job she knew. A better solution would have been to train her to do something else where she wouldn't have to handle food.