Women locked up for life for carrying typhoid

Jul 30 2008

Historians sifting through archives at a history centre in Surrey in the UK have uncovered some disturbing information.

Among hospital records remaining from Long Grove asylum in Epsom, the researchers have found that a number of women suspected of carrying the disease typhoid were incarcerated for life in the asylum between 1944 and 1957.

Although they had recovered from the disease the bacterium was still present in their stools and this was considered a great enough public health risk to justify their incarceration.

While most of the records from the hospital were destroyed after it was closed, two volumes of records were retrieved from the ruins and they revealed that the women were all from the London area and in the thirteen year period, three new carriers were admitted to the unit each year.

According to former staff the asylum was run along the lines of a prison and the women had a basic existence and their lives were hard.

It is thought that though some of the women may have been quite sane when they were initially admitted, most became insane as a result of their incarceration.

The advent of antibiotic treatments in the 1950s appears to have made little difference as the women continued to be detained in the hospital because of their of their mental health.

Former nurses say there was a reluctance on the part of medical staff to enter the unit and all staff were made to scrub up carefully to prevent infection and told to wear surgical gowns and at times masks.

Toilets were also flushed with boiling water, but the sense was one of an over-exaggeration about the threat the women posed to the public health.

Experts say in fact the women would have posed only a small risk to the public and while they had the potential to spread the infection to others this would have involved poor hygiene and most of the problems with typhoid concern bad water supplies.