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William Farr: Good Numbers, Bad Theory

William Farr: Good Numbers, Bad Theory. B. Burt Gerstman (Adapted for MUSE class of 11/23/04) . William Farr. Brief Bio (Humphries, 1885) . Born 1807 Adopted at age 2 by wealthy individual Studied medicine 1826 – 1828

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William Farr: Good Numbers, Bad Theory

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  1. William Farr: Good Numbers, Bad Theory B. Burt Gerstman (Adapted for MUSE class of 11/23/04)

  2. William Farr

  3. Brief Bio (Humphries, 1885) • Born 1807 • Adopted at age 2 by wealthy individual • Studied medicine 1826 – 1828 • Received inheritance enabling study in Paris and Switzerland (medical statistics) • Published statistical reports in 1830s • Did poorly in medical practice in London • Hired in the Registrar General's Office, worked there for 41 years • Died 1883

  4. Farr's conceptual framework of disease etiology (Eyler, 1980, p. 2) • Environmental reform in which political and medical ideas reinforced each other • Statistics offered best hope of advancing social progress and medical knowledge • Imaginative use of a numerical method

  5. “All smell in disease” • Clung to orthodox explanation that epidemic disease was caused by foul air (a "miasma") • Used complex mathematical models to prove his point

  6. Failed to account . . . • for the fact that people living at low elevations were more likely to draw water from contaminated sources . . .

  7. Conclusion • Firm commitments to political ideology clouds scientific judgment • Reliance on numerical method without attention to a pathophysiologic mechanisms is counterproductive

  8. References • Eyler, J. M. (1980). The conceptual origins of William Farr's epidemiology: numerical methods and social thought in the 1830s. In A. M. Lilienfeld (Ed.), Time, Places, and Persons (pp. 1-21). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. • Farr, W. (1852). Influence of Elevation on the Fatality of Cholera. Journal of the Statistical Society of London, 15(2), 155-183. • Gerstman, B. B. (2003). Epidemiology Kept Simple: An Introduction to Traditional and Modern Epidemiology (2 ed.). New York: Wiley-Liss. • Halliday, S. (2000). William Farr: Campaigning Statistician. Journal of Medical Biography, 8, 220-227 (Available http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/farr/). • Humphreys, N. A. (1885). Biographical Sketch of William Farr. In Vital Statistics: A Memorial Volume of Selections from the Reports and Writings of William Farr (pp. vii-xxiv). London: Office of the Sanitary Institute..

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