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Typhoid Carriers and Long Grove Asylum

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  • Typhoid Carriers and Long Grove Asylum

    This has caught my eye today as I have a relative who died at Long Grove Asylum in Epsom, although of a brain tumour in 1918.

    BBC - Today

    There's a list of the woman detained at the bottom of the report.

    A report is on Newsnight tonight BBC2 10.30pm.

    This is also on the Daily Mail's site -

    The British women typhoid carriers who where locked up for LIFE in a mental asylum until the 1990s | Mail Online

  • #2
    I saw that too - it's terrible.

    Apparently they were sane when they went in so knew what was happening to them.

    So due to no cure they had a life sentence without reprieve.



    Researching Irish families: FARMER, McBRIDE McQUADE, McQUAID, KIRK, SANDS/SANAHAN (Cork), BARR,

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    • #3
      The most disturbing thing is that there was a million to one chance of them passing on the disease unless hygiene was bad. All they had to do was educate them on hygiene and they could have lived quite happily in normal circumstances. What I find strange is its all women!

      Its an absolute disgrace.

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      • #4
        I wanted to watch it, but hubby's watching something on Sky :(

        I'll see if I can watch it through BBC IPlayer tomorrow...

        Anyway, for some of these women, they went in sane, but were driven insane by their surroundings. It's a very sad story, especially when they could have been cured by antibiotics when these were introduced in the 1950s.

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        • #5
          Lunatic Asylums were used to house many patients who did not have any mental illness before becoming intuitionalised by many years of imprisonment.
          This was not simply confined to those with untreatable diseases but even to unmarried pregnant women.

          Although a vaccine was developed at the end of the 19th century it was not until the clinical use of antibiotics in 1942 that mortality was greatly decreased.

          To say that “All they had to do was educate them on hygiene” is rather over simplifying the situation. Do not forget that Prince Albert, the Prince Consort died of typhoid in 1861 and that around that period of history there were around 50,000 cases per year in England.
          Cheers
          Guy
          Guy passed away October 2022

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          • #6
            Apparently once they were over the disease there was little chance of them passing it on say the doctors of today.

            They also say that some basic hygiene regimes would have safeguarded the extremely little risk there actually was.

            I haven't forgot that Prince Albert died of typhoid. However, these women had survived the disease thats the point.

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            • #7
              I think Lunatic Asylums were used as dumping grounds for people who were inconvenient in some way, which is why so many inmates were females.

              I presume the authorities were worried following the case of "Typhoid Mary".
              ~ with love from Little Nell~
              Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

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              • #8
                Typhoid Mary was a famous woman - American I think - who was institutionalised because she was a typhoid CARRIER, having survived it herself.

                She worked as a a cook and her hygiene was appalling apparently, so she was eventually confined under the public health act, after refusing to agree to not working with food any more.

                She is believed to have been responsible for infecting hundreds of people with typhoid.

                OC

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Olde Crone Holden View Post
                  Typhoid Mary was a famous woman - American I think - who was institutionalised because she was a typhoid CARRIER, having survived it herself.

                  She worked as a a cook and her hygiene was appalling apparently, so she was eventually confined under the public health act, after refusing to agree to not working with food any more.

                  She is believed to have been responsible for infecting hundreds of people with typhoid.

                  OC

                  Mary Mallon was responsible for 47 infections and 3 deaths whereas Tony Labella was responsible for 112 infections and 5 deaths.

                  However that is not really the point, I remember the fear in Scotland in around 1965 when there was a typhoid outbreak, the slightest cold sent people rushing to the doctors. Many thought it was going to be like the plague.
                  Cheers
                  Guy
                  Guy passed away October 2022

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                  • #10
                    Guy

                    I was visiting my grandmother in 1964 in Aberdeen when the typhoid outbreak occurred.

                    I was stranded there for nearly six weeks before I was allowed to return home - Aberdeen operated a quarantine and a restriction of movement.

                    I vaguely remember that the source of the outbreak was traced to someone working on the cooked meats counter of a shop.

                    OC

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                    • #11
                      I had no idea typhoid was around in these islands so recently. I thought it was a dirty sanitary conditions illness.

                      Only one of my ancestors that I know of - my gt x 3 grandmother Eliza Nash Matthews - died of typhoid in 1875. She had registered her husband Emmets' death from pneumonia just 3 weeks earlier.
                      ~ with love from Little Nell~
                      Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

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                      • #12
                        Typhoid is still around today Nell! However it is no longer always the killer it was as antibiotics can treat it fairly successfully. It is one of the salmonella groups of infections.

                        However, CARRIERS cannot be treated nor cured. Known carriers should not handle food in any stage of its preparation and County Medical officers of health used to have the powers to detain indefinitely any carrier who repeatedly worked in the food industry. I don't know if that still applies or not.

                        Although it seems very harsh to lock up people whose only crime was that of being a typhoid carrier, what else could have been done with them at the time? The typhoid germs can survive for many months in water courses and dried sewage.

                        Men were locked up too, but back in those days, few men worked in the catering industry or as domestic cooks.

                        I inherited my job as a relief cook in an OP home when the previous lady turned out to be a typhoid carrier.Obviously you cannot take such a risk in an OP home and anyway, it is illegal for that lady to work as a food handler in any capacity.

                        OC

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