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Florence Nightingale ( born in Florence, 12/05/1820) was not only in the RSS (elected 1858) but became an honorary member of the American Statistical Association in 1874 and the first woman to be awarded the Order of Merit (1907). Although popularly known as the Lady of the Lamp, she is also referred to as the Passionate Statistician. It was her data collection and presentation which were crucial in her campaigns to reform health and sanitary conditions in the army, in hospitals and in nursing and were influential in establishing a statistical department in the army. For more information, there is a short biography in NL Johnson & S Kotz: Leading personalities in Statistical Science (Wiley, 1997) and an informative article by IB Cohen in Scientific American (1984) including some original data charts. There is also a very brief account of her influence, but including a fascinating example of a data chart, in BS Everitt: Chance Rules (an informal guide to probability, risk and statistics) (Copernicus, 1999) By the way, I would heartily recommend this last book for the general reader not just for its eminently readable account of the ways of probabilistic/statistical thinking but for its historical insights. Hope this is of some help. Quentin Burrell ----- Original Message ----- From: "steve Godwin" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: 15 January 2001 01:20 Subject: Florence Nightingale and Statistics > I have just remembered that Florence Nightingale was one of the first > applied statisticians. I saw a documentary on the BBC, maybe an Open > University production, but cannot remember the context or the programme (it > was very late at night). > > If I remember correctly she kept meticulous records and the Royal > Statistical Society at the time was concerned mainly with pure Statistics. > Her influence on the Society had significant impacts in moving towards > statistical applications. > > It sounds very interesting and I would like to know more. I hope I have got > the gist of the facts right. Perhaps someone out there knows more or could > confirm this? I think it is significant that one of the founders of modern > nursing should be a prominent statistician and that this might help to > motivate and interest nursing students. > > Steve Godwin