Who Are They And How Are They Connected

Who Are They? And How Are They Connected? Famous statisticians, public health people and others famous individuals related to LSHTM and its surroundings A short quiz where everyone’s a winner! MSU Retreat Cambridge 1 st April 2008

• Sir Ronald Ross (1857 -1932) • Connected to famous early work of LSHTM • First Briton to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine (1902) • Discovered that mosquitoes transmit malaria (1897)

• Florence Nightingale (1820 -1910) • Crimea war started in July 1854 • ‘Real enemies not the Russians but cholera, typhus and dysentry’ • Charge of the Light Brigade: October 1854 • In 1858 she became the first woman to be elected a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society for her contribution to Army statistics and comparative hospital statistics

1823, 1990, 2005 • Thomas Wakely (1795 - 1862) founded the Lancet in 1823 -Radical journalist William Cobbett proposed that a journal like the Lancet could be used to campaign for reforms in the medical profession • A surgeon who spent 17 years in the House of Commons

John Snow (1813 -1858) • Traced source of a cholera outbreak in Soho in 1854 • Study of causality • One of first physicians to study use of ether and chloroform • Administered chloroform to Queen Victoria for birth of last 2 children Sander Greenland • Well-known for recent work on causality in epidemiology

Francis Galton (1822 -1911) Charles Darwin (1809 -1882) • Francis Galton and Charles Darwin were half-cousins • Galton • correlation, regression and regression to the mean • studied human intelligence • founded Biometrika with Pearson and Weldon in 1901 • undertook eugenics work considered controversial today • International Eugenics Conference, London, 1912 dedicated to Galton

Siméon Denis POISSON French statistician, 1781 -1840 Ronald A. FISHER English statistician, 1890 -1962 English[ cette homme ] + “er” = This man

William Gossett (1876 -1937) • A chemist at the Guinness brewery in Dublin from 1899 • Student’s t distribution • To handle small samples for quality control in brewing A pint of Guiness • Arthur Guiness born 1725 in Kildare • Brewing industry was suffering since English beer was less heavily taxed than Irish • Brewed strong black beer in 1770 which became very successful

James Lind (1716 -1794) • Thought to have performed the first ever clinical trial • Demonstrated that citrus fruits cure scurvy • Pioneer of naval hygiene • Worked on preventive medicine and hygiene and cleanliness Stuart Pocock • One of our own famous clinical trialists

Austin Bradford Hill (1897 -1991) Sir Richard Doll (1912 -2005) • Joint work on smoking and lung cancer • 1950 case-control study • British doctors study • Hill: • MSU from 1947 • MRC statistician on what many believe to be the first RCT (use of streptomycin in the treatment of tuberculosis) as opposed to Lind • Fisher was highly critical of the smoking/cancer work but proposed that Hill be made a fellow of the Royal Society

John Maynard Keynes (1883 -1946) Virginia Woolf (1882 -1941) • Members of the Bloomsbury Group • First half of 20 th century • Started with a few Cambridge graduates and their friends • Keynes • economist • Woolf • Lived at 46 Gordon Square • Author of Mrs Dalloway, Orlando, To the Lighthouse

• Artemis • Goddess of hunting and chastity, comforter of women in childbirth • Apollo • God of prophecy, music and medicine LSHTM seal • Artemis is driving chariot whilst Apollo is shooting arrows • Date palm for the tropical activities of the School and connection to birth of Apollo and Artemis- palm sprang up to give shade in childbirth • Staff with a snake coiled for medical interests of the School

LSHTM

“Statistical Aspects of the Analysis of Data from Retrospective Studies of Disease” JNCI, 1959; 22: 719 - 748 Nathan Mantel & William Haenszel

• Austin Bradford Hill (1897 -1991) • MSU from 1947 • MRC statistician on what many believe to be the first RCT • Use of streptomycin in the treatment of tuberculosis • Work on smoking and lung cancer with Richard Doll • 1950 case-control study • British doctors study • Fisher was highly critical of the smoking/cancer work but proposed that he be made a fellow of the Royal Society • Peter Armitage (1924 -) • Professor in MSU 1961 -1976 • Said of Austin Bradford Hill on his death: • “to anyone involved in medical statistics, epidemiology or public health, Bradford Hill was quite simply the world’s leading medical statistician ”

Pearson Neyman