Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)

Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy. As a child, she demanded that her parents allow her to be tutored in math. She continued to study math on her own as an adult. She is best known for her contributions to the field of nursing. It was her interest in public health which motivated her use of statistics.

Nightingale worked as a nurse during the Crimean War. She used data about war casualties to show the importance of maintaining sanitary conditions in field hospitals and sending medical supplies to soldiers in the field. In particular, she cited the large proportion of deaths due to illness or untreated wounds compared to those from combat. She created a polar area chart, similar to a pie chart, where the area represents the proportion of deaths in each month from each type of death. Her charts showed that many of the deaths were due to preventable diseases or other preventable causes.

Her colleague, William Farr, disagreed with her approach saying, We do not want impressions. We want facts... You complain that your report would be dry. The drier the better. Statistics should be the driest of all reading (Heyde & Seneta, 2001, p. 173). He felt that she needed to include more details and explanation rather than interpretation and elaboration. She, however, felt that it was important to apply statistics to situations to promote improvement, such as the conditions of the hospitals. She found energy and purpose in using data to support causes and inspired meaningful uses of statistics.