It shows seasonal variation in the cause of mortality of soldiers in the military field hospital.Īt the end of the war, Nightingale wrote a report including this infographic, which carried a stark message: hospitals can kill. Iconic may be too strong a word to describe Nightingale’s “rose diagram” but I think it is appropriate – this nineteenth century pie-chart is indeed a visual icon. Picture: Florence Nightingale’s Rose Diagram (1854). But the Lady of the Lamp was also a splendid epidemiologist, who harnessed the power of the infographic and statistics to initiate change. Nightingale is famous for looking after thousands of soldiers during the Crimean War (1853-6). The Rose Diagram by Florence Nightingale (below) also stands out as a fine public health infographic. John Graunt was a haberdasher by trade, although he is now considered to be one of the first epidemiologists. It was collated from early death notifications gathered by parish clerks in London at the turn of the 17 th century, in an attempt to monitor deaths from plague.Īmong the more interesting points were the three to four people per year who died from lethargy the eight who died by “Wolf” between 16 (why none before or after – was there a cull of man-eaters?) and most sadly what appears to be 279 folk who died from grief over those 15-20 years. Graunt’s table is one of the earliest publications of public health data. Picture: John Graunt’s Bills of Mortality (1662). Perhaps unsurprisingly, my favourite infographics were John Graunt’s “Bills of Mortality” from 1662 and Florence Nightingale’s “Rose Diagram” from 1854. The display features a variety of designs spanning almost four centuries. Buzzfeed have paid tribute to Beautiful Science with a look at “ 9 Glorious Infographics Through History”, which is both an appropriate and considerate choice. This historical review of infographics reveal how scientific understanding has developed together with people’s capacity to represent data in pictures and graphs. The exhibition explores how scientific stories are told by turning numbers into pictures – the story of infographics. Picture: The British Library and St Pancras by Jim Linwood, Flickr Creative Commons The British Library is running an exhibit entitled “ Beautiful Science: Picturing Data, Inspiring Insight” from 20 th February to 26 th May 2014.
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