ABSTRACT
Whether from the actual spread of disease, inter-marriage, and subsequent poisoning of the blood of the nation, unrelenting mass fecundity, or purposeful and conspiratorial actions, action had to be taken against target groups because of the threat that they posed to the nation’s health and well-being. Since the traits that set such persons apart from the “normal” population were essential and unchanging, contact with others or miscegenation would be unilateral; infecting those who previously had been pure. In some cases, moreover, the decision to engage in such contact in the first place led to concerns that while such associates may not have been diagnosed, they were inherently flawed. Indeed, in their overt or unwitting efforts to destroy the nation, this is where spread and degeneracy would begin in earnest, with the infection of persons who could, like Typhoid Mary, move freely within larger society.
