Medical Statistics from Graunt to Farr

The four Fitzpatrick Lectures, delivered at the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1943 by Major Greenwood, have been reprinted as a stimulating monograph on medical statistics. The particular epoch examined (circa 16301840) begins with the publications of John Graunt, whose contributions to the subject of medical and vital statistics have always been regarded as great classics of science, and ends with the writings of William Farr, who created the best official vital statistics of the world. The burden of the lectures is to describe critically the growth of a method of scientific investigation which has influenced profoundly the thought of all mankind. The casual intercourse of Graunt and Petty laid the basis for the development of the numerical method as applied not only to public health and medicine, but also to phenomena of human society. Scholarly comments are made on the lives and works of other pioneers, such as Halley, King, Price, and Woolcombe, supported by generous references from primary sources. Dr. Greenwood carefully traces the major steps in the refinement of epidemiologic inference, population estimates, recording of mortality and morbidity data, and life table analysis. However, this is no cut and dried rendering. The writer labors the point that these contributions have stemmed from courageous amateurs rather than from professionals in the field. In fact, the moral prevails throughout that the intellectual daring of such amateurs often succeeds where erudition fails. As an epilogue, the author submits that it is treachery to science to rebuff a genuinely inquisitive person, especially in view of the "discovery" of a Graunt in a shop and a Farr in the office of a general practitioner. -SAMUEL HERMAN