How did data visualization save thousands of people 200 years ago?
Author: Murray Dick play Rui
Murray Dick is a lecturer in multimedia journalism at Newcastle University and the author of The Infographic: A History of Data Graphics in News and Communications. This article is based on an excerpt from the book. Added translation and related background:
If someone asks, when you only have one page or can only slide the mouse once, how do you convey a convincing story or message?
Let's look at two pictures first.
The first picture is from the Washington Post. The picture counts the number of school shootings since 2000. Each dot represents 10 children threatened by shootings.
The second picture is from Austrian designer Herwig Scherabon. The height of the rectangular buildings in the two cities in the picture corresponds to the income level of each region, clearly showing the gap between rich and poor in modern cities.
Both pictures are excellent works realized with the help of data visualization.
As one of the key stages in the entire data science process, completing a picture data visualization is not unattainable and unfamiliar. Whether you are a data industry practitioner or not, you will inevitably use it in your daily work and reporting. Various charts to visualize the data.
It is no stranger to non-data industry practitioners. In the 21st century, we are familiar with this kind of graph. It appears on the screen of the securities building, with red and green lines intertwined; it appears in our questionnaire, rising one after another. During the new crown epidemic, we are paying attention to various statistics almost every day.
But what is less known is that data visualization, which has become popular in the fields of business intelligence and data journalism, has a long, rich and exciting history and was once a relatively obscure field.
For example, in the long history of humans and diseases, the statistical work on epidemic data that appeared two centuries ago has not received so much attention. But two people became the key force to reverse this trend.
One is William Farr, the pioneer of medical statistics and the father of modern epidemiology; the other is the source of Nurse's Day, the "goddess of lantern" in the Crimean War (1853-1856) Florence Nightingale (Florence Nightingale).
"The Causes of Death of the Eastern Army"-Excerpted from the article "Contributions to the Health History of the British Army during the Late Russian War" by Florence Nightingale | Source: Wellcome Collection.
Pioneer of early public health visualization
Britain in the 1830s was at the height of the Industrial Revolution. The social relations and social structure of this country are also in a stage of violent turbulence due to the rapid development of productivity.
The great social changes and the redistribution of benefits have brought together liberals and reformers from different business and professional classes to engage in statistical research. Within a few years, a series of societies have been formed in the capital and key industrial cities in the north, using statistical methods to study content related to the interests and interests of their respective members.
Among them, as the side effects of industrialization continued to show up, farmers flocked to cities and towns to find work, looking for refuge in attic or cellar, a dozen people crowded in one room, and almost no sanitary facilities. The smoke from the factory polluted the air. The economic prosperity and the lives of lower-class workers are in sharp contrast. Dirty, poverty, and suffering are prevalent among the working class, while the civil hygiene movement is at its lowest ebb. Health issues have become the primary concern of various societies.
On the one hand, as the medical history expert John Eyler said in the book "Victoria Social Medicine", health issues are "a fundamental part of the well-being of the working class." On the other hand, data on health is relatively easy Obtain.
In the 1840s, while these societies rose, the publishing revolution also rose widely. New communication and printing technologies have reduced the cost of communication and improved the quality of printing, creating a prerequisite for early public health visualization. The reason is that hygiene is an essential part of the well-being of the working class.
William Fall is one of those who are concerned about this health problem. As one of the founders of modern medical statistics and epidemiology, in fact, his career began in medical journalism rather than clinical practice, which instead consolidated his reputation as a life statistics expert.
Fall tried to convey his hygiene thoughts through a series of public health lectures and awaken the sleepy authorities. Due to insufficient funds, the lecture failed, but this was the beginning of his becoming a reformer. He firmly believes that disease prevention is easier than cure, and health can be promoted.
After the establishment of the British General Register (GRO) in 1837, the first wave of statistics was the application of statistics to the study of poverty and the living environment of the poor.
With such ambitions in mind, Falgar GRO became a core member until retirement in 1839.
During this period, Fall was also a regular contributor to the medical journal The Lancet, upholding the spirit of free reform and the integrity of a professional statistician. Like many of his peers in the contemporary statistical society, he strives to find a balance between ideological inclination and objective statistical research.
Fall’s specific job is to record births, marriages and deaths in the city, and to report to the authorities on regular forms. When conducting the British Census, he created the best official vital statistics system in the world, and developed research methods to describe the distribution of diseases and influencing factors, which can accurately count the causes of death in the population, thereby promoting public health improvement.
And he likes to use charts in GRO publications. Although these charts themselves are not innovative, they have amazing results. The causes of death he counted have also provided impetus to the ongoing public health campaign, including restricting the supply of opium and re-examining the relationship between urban development and health.
In his summary report (published in the Fifth Annual Report (1843)), three line graphs were used to juxtapose the mortality rates in Surrey, Liverpool, and the Metropolis, indicating the mortality rates within the distribution range The difference is huge. As can be seen from the Liverpool chart, half of the children there died before the age of 6. The previous view that urban development is consistent with environmental sanitation has been strongly questioned.
"Geographical Distribution of Drunkenness in England and Wales", from J. Rowntree and A. Sherwell's "The Problem of Temperance and Social Reform", 1899.
Picture: W. Farr, "Annual Report on the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages in England and Wales", Fifth Report (London: HMSO, 1843), p. 51.
The nurse who knows data analysis best
Compared to William Fall, Florence Nightingale (Florence Nightingale) may be a name you are more familiar with.
Every year, the Nurse's Day is to commemorate the founder of modern nursing and nursing education.
During the Crimean War from 1854 to 1856, she led 38 nurses to the frontline to take care of the wounded and the sick, established a hospital administrator system, improved the quality of care, and rapidly reduced the death rate of the wounded and sick. In 1860, she founded the first nursing school in London in London, which made the nursing career gradually become professional and scientific. But what is less known is her promotion of data visualization during this period.
In September 1854, when the Crimean War broke out, William Howard Russell of The Times sent back a series of shocking reports from the front, which caused great dissatisfaction among the general public and exposed The problem of the army’s lack of medical preparation and poor treatment of the wounded. The Minister of War at the time was forced to take action and asked Nightingale to visit the military hospital in Crimea with government funding.
Nightingale came to Istanbul's Scutari Barracks Hospital and often stayed with wounded soldiers. As a result, the media paid great attention to her. She rose to fame for a while, and the Times praised her as a "woman who brings light." Although Nightingale was mainly in administrative positions, he visited the ward regularly and developed strong feelings among the soldiers.
In March 1858, in order to raise the government's attention to military health issues and to implement her recommendations, Nightingale launched a media campaign. She identified some editors who could publish articles for her, provided their names to committee members (and her close friends) Sydney Herbert, and then contributed to these editors. She focused her contributions on quarterly journals and reviews, which had a higher social reputation than any daily newspaper. Nightingale produced a personalized "news kit" that included "summaries, facts, and even the titles of all articles" and published them anonymously.
Nightingale and Farr share a common belief: both are dedicated to statistical research, trying to uncover the laws of nature hidden in human behavior. They believe that if human beings uncover this law, they will better adapt to this society and gradually improve the living conditions of the human group.
This idea originated from Adolphe Quetelet (Adolphe Quetelet). In 1831, Quatlet published a distribution map of property crime in France to support his view that no matter how human society develops, crime obeys the laws of nature and increases with the increase in social inequality. Quetelet's method is empirical, practical, and based on statistical queries. Later, he wrote the first book that applied statistical methods to the study of social issues-"Sociology and Humanities" (1835), which had a very important influence on Nightingale. The method of collecting data systematically made her feel a climax of thought.
For Nightingale, applying statistics to public utilities is "a moral obligation and a religious obligation" to accomplish the will of God.
Nightingale was keenly aware of the rhetorical power of infographics, and even gained aesthetic enjoyment in statistics.
This is clearly reflected in Nightingale's "Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Management of the British Army" (1858).
She creatively used graphs to represent the seasonal mortality rate in military hospitals, and condemned the poor sanitary conditions in the Crimean military hospitals. The death toll from preventable diseases was seven times the number of deaths on the battlefield. It changed the perceptions of senior people including Queen Victoria at that time, leading them to make medical reform decisions.
Visualization expert Lee Brasseur gave a convincing evaluation of the visual rhetoric of the three images in Nightingale’s 16-page pamphlet "Contributions to the British Military’s Health History" . He believes that the triptych chart in this influential short booklet has a coherent sequential process.
"A Map of the Causes of Death in the Eastern Army" by F Nightingale, excerpted from "Contributions to the Health History of the British Army during the Late Russian War" (London: John W. Parker, 1859) Image source: Wellcome Collection.
The first is titled "Eastern Army Mortality Chart," which lists the monthly army mortality in the first and second years of the war. The larger graph on the right is about mortality in the first year, while the dotted line draws the reader’s attention to the smaller graph on the left, which relates to mortality in the second year. In each graph, these death rates are juxtaposed with concentric circles to represent the average death rate in Manchester (one of the towns with the highest death rates in England at the time).
In order to attract viewers to reflect on the reasons for these differences, the second chart "Eastern Army Death Causes Map" uses a color-coordinated polar map, where most deaths are due to preventable diseases.
After determining the severity of the problem and studying the reasons, Nightingale listed the third chart-listing the monthly mortality rate, which was in the Scutari and Kulali military districts after March 1855. Research results obtained by the hospital. In general, these three charts have made a sharp visual critique, pointing out that the military is responsible for the many unnecessary deaths on the front lines of Crimea.
Nightingale’s polar chart (or explosive pie chart) originated from the innovation of William Playfair, and used William Playfair’s pie chart in a very effective way. Metaphorical meaning in. But the same credit goes to her long-time collaborator William Fall for his attempts at pie charts in early publications.
These diagrams go beyond their surface unity, continuity and continuity. The changes in the scale of each part suggest a sense of discontinuity, but at the same time it also reflects the spirit of cartographic empiricism, which was in the 19th century This is reflected in a wider statistical map.
This form is full of power, authority, and purpose, and it examines current social abuses. This booklet is a multi-modal medium that combines highly responsible explanatory discourse elements to become a very persuasive discourse tool.
In fact, Nightingale has a natural talent for infographic design or "statistical aesthetics." Her data charts are as persuasive as written rhetoric. She believes that the chart format can be understood by everyone including the Queen and the public.
Unfortunately, these forms of her have not been widely disseminated, and most of them are buried in hundreds of pages of government reports.
Moreover, Nightingale can be regarded as a passionate statistician, but she was rarely reported by the Victorian press. Nightingale and Farr’s visual charts have some high-profile audiences, but they have no direct significant impact on the public.
It wasn't until the popularity of almanac books in the early 20th century that Hyundai Daily gave birth to the prosperity of the British publishing industry, and the general public did not begin to access infographics. In addition to public health experts, more and more government decision-makers and the general public are beginning to believe that information can be one of the necessary "drugs", knowing which data streams can help quell future outbreaks.
References：
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/history-of-early-public-health-infographics/
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