I chose to read \u201cExtraordinary and Even Arbitrary Powers: Public Health Policy\u201d because I hoped it would parallel my own research on health policies in schools during the Spanish Flu.\u00a0 Although I did not find any direct parallels to my project, this chapter in Judith Walzer Leavitt\u2019s Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public\u2019s Health<\/i> did give me a few new sources I would like to check out.\u00a0 I would like to research Charles Chapin and Milton Rosenau who wrote on public health issues.\u00a0 Even if their works focus on typhoid, it would be helpful to understand the public health climate of the time regarding other diseases to see if and how Spanish Flu was treated any differently, particularly in schools.<\/p>\n
In this chapter, Leavitt primarily focuses on how public health policy makers justified permanently isolating Mary Mallon and no others.\u00a0 Leavitt points to the facts that Mallon was the first carrier identified, she reacted violently to authorities, she resumed cooking under a fake name after her first stint at isolation, she was foreign, and she was not a \u201cbreadwinner\u201d as possible explanations.\u00a0 However, Leavitt explains there were other foreigners, other single women, other cooks, and other resisters to the Health Department who were not sent to an island to live in isolation.\u00a0 Leavitt argues, therefore, that it was public health policy makers\u2019 desire to make an example of Mallon that landed the cook on North Brother Island.<\/p>\n