Florence Nightingale, statistician

1858

Le due «rose» di Florence Nightingale ridisegnate: per ogni mese uno spicchio la cui area misura i morti per malattie (blu), per ferite (rosso) e per altre cause (blu scuro); la rosa del 1854-55 è molto più grande di quella del 1855-56 — The “rose” redrawn from Nightingale's data: each wedge is a month and its area measures deaths from preventable diseases (blue), wounds (red) and other causes (dark blue). Right: April 1854 - March 1855; left: the following year.

In 1858 Florence Nightingale became the first woman admitted to the Statistical Society of London, today’s Royal Statistical Society, and remained a member for more than fifty years.

During the Crimean War she had collected data on soldiers’ deaths and presented them in a polar area chart, the so-called “rose”: most deaths were caused by preventable diseases rather than by wounds. An early example of statistics used to change health and social policy.

Source: Royal Statistical Society