Mary Mallon was born in Ireland 1869, and emigrated to the US at 15.  She worked as a cook for several rich families in NYC, seven of whom contracted typhoid fever.  In 1907, Ms. Mallon was forcibly quarantined and required to give stool and urine samples, which tested positive for high amounts of a particular bacteria.  She admitted that she almost never washed her hands and, furthermore, refused to stop working as a cook because it was the most well-paying job she could find.  After being instructed on proper hygiene and promising not to work as a cook again, Ms. Mallon was released from quarantine in 1910.

However.

She worked in laundry for a few years but injured her arm, and was unable to work for several months.  After her recovery, she began working as a cook again under different aliases; at nearly every location there were outbreaks of typhoid fever.  Finally, in 1915, Ms. Mallon gained work as a cook in a women’s hospital; 25 patients contracted the disease, and two died.  Ms. Mallon was returned to quarantine in 1915, where she would remain until her death from a stroke at 69.

So lived the life of Typhoid Mary. 

She carried and spread the disease while being unaffected by it, causing sickness in those around her.

Another natural-born Irish, Marie Gilbert arrived in 1821’s Ireland, and as Lola Montez aspired to fame, wealth, and respectability, but could only achieve her goals through powerful men.  Beginning as a failed Parisian dancer in 1845, Ms. Montez became a courtesan – a “high-pro ho” – eventually wooing and beguiling the owner of the largest newspaper in France.  However, his fortunes turned severely; he refused to listen to the warnings of friends and family about Ms. Montez, and wound up killed in a duel, possibly to protest her (lack of) honor.  Approximately (barely?) a year later, Ms. Montez then moved on to Munich, setting her sights on the king of Bavaria, ultimately love-bombing him into a romance, a position in his cabinet and nearly causing a civil war in a once-peaceful country, resulting in the king abdicating his throne about two years after their initial meeting.  She then relocated to England, targeting a promising young military officer ten years’ her junior.  He, too, fell into her web and married her; however, she had married another man in 1837 and never divorced.  She and her English lover escaped from England to Portugal after she was charged with bigamy.  Eventually they split, after she had sliced him with a knife, and when he returned to England he found no job, no position, and no prospects, and died penniless in a boating accident a few years later.  Her next victim was a California man she met in 1853, after jumping the pond and moving to America.  Their relationship was another slow-motion crash; after she left him for another man, he fell into the bottle and died four years later.  Ms. Montez died in 1861 at the age of 41 after having her “come-to-JESUS” moment whereby she renounced her material possessions and toured the nation giving talks on religious topics dressed all in white.

The man who wrote Lola Montez’s biography went bankrupt. 

There is a 2003 movie called “The Cooler” that depicts an innately unlucky man who misfortune infects others, so much so that he is employed by casinos to sit near gamblers to end their lucky streaks.  In the movie “Parenthood,” Jason Robards character realizes his youngest son Larry (“Amadeus’” Tom Hulce) will always be unlucky, irresponsible, and daft, and his best option is to pay his son to leave.

There are those whom misfortune follows, almost a cosmic disfavor, that envelops others within its midst and “stems from an inward instability that radiates outward, drawing disaster upon itself.” 

Avoid such persons at all cost, or expect the consequences. 
“In the game of power, [those] you associate with are critical.”  Birds of a feather, so to speak.

You are known by the company you keep, and if those in your circle are constantly courting disaster, misfortune, and bad luck … it is past time to level up, off, and away.  Seek those of similar mindset.

Beware of those who suffer from “chronic dissatisfaction,” which nearly always originates from a deep, incessant, and abiding sense of jealousy.  Julius Caesar recognized this trait in Cassius, and passed him up for promotion in favor of Brutus.  But Cassius was a man of “chronic dissatisfaction,” could tolerate no one deemed greater than himself, and eventually turned Brutus against Caesar with his incessant spite.  While Brutus did not support all of Caesar’s rule, he was next in the line of power, and with patience he could have achieved all he sought rather than descend into treachery and catapult the Roman Empire into civil war and the beginning of its end. 

“Et tu, Brutus?” 

Similarly, and conversely, those of good cheer, temperament, generosity, graciousness, intellect, countenance, humility, and discipline tend to infect others with those same traits.  One aspect of this law of power is “never associate with those who share your defects.”  Socialize with individuals who bear the positive opposite
              – if miserly, seek the generous
                             – if introverted, seek the extrovert
                                           – if morose, seek the cheerful
                                                          – if calamitous, seek the taciturn.

One hallmark of power is success … and successful people foster success in those around them.

Mind the company you keep.