George Soper


George Albert Soper II was an American sanitation engineer. He was best known for discovering Mary Mallon, also known as Typhoid Mary, a carrier of Typhoid fever who had no symptoms.

Biography

Soper was the son of George Albert Soper and Georgianna Lydia Buckman.
He received his degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1895 and a PhD from Columbia University in 1899. He was described as 'Major, US Army', in the entry for 1907 in the New York City Department of Health Centennial Newspaper noting the 'discovery of the carrier, Typhoid Mary'. He was the managing director of the American Society for the Control of Cancer, which later changed its name to the American Cancer Society, from 1923-1928.
Typhoid Mary was tracked down and arrested by Ms. Willa Carey Noble, a bacteriologist at Research laboratories of the Public Health Department of New York City under William Hallock Park, in Mr. Soper's office, as he acknowledged in his writings.