William Farr Good Numbers Bad Theory B Burt

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 Received inheritance enabling study in Paris and Switzerland (medical statistics) Published statistical reports in 1830 s Did poorly in medical practice in London Hired in the Registrar General's Office, worked there for 41 years Died 1883

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

“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

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

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

References • • • Eyler, J. M. (1980). The conceptual origins of William Farr's epidemiology: numerical methods and social thought in the 1830 s. 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. .