The Tendency to Graphically Represent Information Seems to Be One of The
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he tendency to graphically represent information seems to be Tone of the basic human instincts. As such, identification of the oldest such representation is an elusive task, the earliest known being the map of Konyo, Turkey, dated 6200 B.C. The earliest 1498 known bar chart is the one by Bishop N. Oresme (1350). 1548 Most of the modern forms of statistical graphic techniques were invented between 1780 and 1940. In 1786, William Playfair used 1598 timeseries graphs to depict the amount of import and export to and from England, and in 1801, he published a pie chart to show graph 1648 ically that the British paid more tax than other countries. The first stacked bar chart, cumulative frequency polygon and histogram were published, respec 1698 tively, by A. Humboldt (1811), J.B.J. Fourier (1821), and A.M. Guerry (1833). The same 1748 period saw development of nontrivial applications of these techniques to realworld prob lems. One of the most significant contributors in this regard was the lady with a lamp , 1898 Florence Nightingale. Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy in 1820, but was raised mostly in 1948 Derbyshire, England. In spite of resistance from society and her mother, her father edu cated her in Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, history, philosophy, and, her favourite 2000 subject, mathematics. When she was 17 years old, Florence had a spiritual experience. She felt herself called by God to His service. Since that time, she made up her mind to dedicate her life to some social cause. She refused to marry several suitors and at the age of twentyfive, stunned her parents by informing them that she had decided to be a nurse, a profession consid ered low class at that time. During the 1854 British war in Crimea, stirred by the reports of primitive sanitation methods at the British barracks’ hospital, she volunteered her services, and set out to Scutari, Turkey with a group of 38 nurses. Here, mainly by improving the sanitary condi tions and nursing methods, she managed to bring down the mortality rate at the hospital from 42.7 percent to about 2 percent. On her return to England after the war as a national hero, she dedicated herself to the task of improving the sanitation, and quality of nursing in military hospitals. In this, she encountered strong opposition from the establishment. But with the support of Queen Victoria, and more importantly, with shrewd use of graphic methods (such as stacked bar charts and a new type of polar bar chart that she developed on her own), she succeeded in bringing forth reforms. She was one of the first to use graphical methods in a pre scriptive, rather that merely a descriptive way, to bring about social reform. Over the subsequent 20 years, she applied statistical methods to civilian hospitals, midwifery, Indian public health, and colonial schools. She briefly served as an adviser to the British war office on medical care in Canada. Her mathematical activities included determining “the average speed of transport by sledge,” and “the time to transport the sick over immense distances in Canada.” With her statistical analysis, she revolutionized the idea that social phenomena could be objectively measured and subjected to mathematical analyses. Karl Pearson acknowl edged her as “prophetess” in the development of applied statistics. Nightingale held strong opinions on women’s rights, and fought for the removal of restrictions that prevented women from having careers. In 1907 she became the first woman to receive the Order of Merit, an order established by King Edward VII for meri torious service..