William Farr
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
epidemiologist, regarded as one of the founders of medical statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
.
Early life
He was born in KenleyKenley, Shropshire
Kenley is a small village and parish in the English county of Shropshire. It is located in remote countryside, atop a ridge at around above sea level, with the larger villages of Acton Burnell and Harley being a few miles away....
, Shropshire
Shropshire
Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to poor parents. He was effectively adopted by a local squire, Joseph Pryce, when Farr and his family moved to Dorrington
Dorrington, Shropshire
Dorrington is a large village in Shropshire, England, located 6 miles south of Shrewsbury. The population of the village was estimated as being 619 in 2008....
.
In 1826 he took a job as a dresser (surgeon's assistant) in Shrewsbury infirmary. Pryce died in November 1828, and left Farr £500, which allowed him to study medicine in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. He returned to England in 1831 and continued his studies at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
, qualifying as a doctor
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
with the Apothecaries' Society in March 1832.
He married in 1833 and started a medical practice in Fitzroy Square
Fitzroy Square
Fitzroy Square is one of the Georgian squares in London and is the only one found in the central London area known as in Fitzrovia.The square, nearby Fitzroy Street and the Fitzroy Tavern in Charlotte Street have the family name of Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, into whose ownership the land...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. By this time he had become fascinated by medical statistics, a subject which he called "hygology" (derived from "hygiene"). In 1837 he wrote a chapter called "Vital Statistics" for a highly regarded reference book, John McCulloch's "Statistical Account of the British Empire". In January 1837 he established the British Annals of Medicine, Pharmacy, Vital Statistics, and General Science
British Annals of Medicine, Pharmacy, Vital Statistics, and General Science
The British Annals of Medicine, Pharmacy, Vital Statistics, and General Science was a weekly publication edited by William Farr that ran from only January to August 1837. Although short-lived, it was succeeded by Farr's other journals and was extremely influential in the development of vital...
, but it was already discontinued in August.
Shortly after graduating he attempted to establish a course in "Hygiology", but was unable to gain recognition from any educational institution for this project (Diamond and Stone I:68).
General Register Office
His wife died of tuberculosisTuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
in 1838, after which he secured a post in the General Register Office for England and Wales as the first compiler of scientific abstracts, on an initial salary of £350 per year. He was responsible for the collection of official medical statistics in England and Wales. His most important contribution was to set up a system for routinely recording the causes of death. For example, for the first time it allowed the mortality rate
Mortality rate
Mortality rate is a measure of the number of deaths in a population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit time...
s of different occupations to be compared. In 1839, he joined the Statistical Society (now called the Royal Statistical Society
Royal Statistical Society
The Royal Statistical Society is a learned society for statistics and a professional body for statisticians in the UK.-History:It was founded in 1834 as the Statistical Society of London , though a perhaps unrelated London Statistical Society was in existence at least as early as 1824...
) and played an active part in it as treasurer, vice-president and president over the years. He remarried in 1842 and had eight children.
There was a major outbreak of cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1849 which killed around 15,000 people. Early industrialisation had made London the most populous city in the World at the time, and the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
was heavily polluted with untreated sewage. Farr subscribed to the conventional theory that cholera was carried by polluted air rather than water - the miasmic theory
Miasma theory of disease
The miasma theory held that diseases such as cholera, chlamydia or the Black Death were caused by a miasma , a noxious form of "bad air"....
.
As a result of studying this outbreak, the physician John Snow
John Snow (physician)
John Snow was an English physician and a leader in the adoption of anaesthesia and medical hygiene. He is considered to be one of the fathers of epidemiology, because of his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in Soho, England, in 1854.-Early life and education:Snow was born 15 March...
proposed what is now known to be the actual mechanism for transmission - that people were infected by swallowing something and that it multiplied in the intestine
Intestine
In human anatomy, the intestine is the segment of the alimentary canal extending from the pyloric sphincter of the stomach to the anus and, in humans and other mammals, consists of two segments, the small intestine and the large intestine...
s.
There was another epidemic in 1853, and Farr gathered statistical evidence to try to support the miasmic theory. He demonstrated statistically that cholera was spread by polluted air by showing that the likelihood of dying of the disease was linked to the height that the victims lived above the River Thames. He interpreted this as support for the miasmic theory - the air at lower altitudes being dirtier. However he also obtained details of where different water companies drew their water, and generated statistics on the number of deaths per water company. He discovered that people supplied with water from two companies in particular- the Southwark & Vauxhall and the Lambeth water companies - which drew their water directly from the Thames were particularly likely to suffer. Although he did not agree with Snow's waterborne theory, he gave him a great deal of help in collecting data to support it; in particular by providing the addresses of people who had died.
In 1858, he performed a study on the correlation of health and marriage condition, and found that health decreases from the married to the unmarried to the widowed.
There was a further epidemic in 1866, by which time Snow had died. Farr had by now come around to believe Snow's explanation. He produced a monograph which showed that mortality was extremely high for people who drew their water from the Old Ford Reservoir in East London. By this time, the germ theory of disease
Germ theory of disease
The germ theory of disease, also called the pathogenic theory of medicine, is a theory that proposes that microorganisms are the cause of many diseases...
had become more widely accepted, partly through the work of Edward Jenner
Edward Jenner
Edward Anthony Jenner was an English scientist who studied his natural surroundings in Berkeley, Gloucestershire...
and Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist born in Dole. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of diseases. His discoveries reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and he created the first vaccine for rabies and anthrax. His experiments...
on inoculation; and Farr's work was considered conclusive. The consequence was that public health measures were now directed towards the real cause of cholera. In particular, large engineering projects were started in many
cities to collect and treat sewage, ultimately eliminating the disease in industrialised countries.
Farr served as a commissioner in the 1871 census, retiring from the General Register Office in 1879 after he was not given the post of Registrar General
Registrar General
General Register Office, in England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and many Commonwealth nations, is the government agency responsible for civil registration - the recording of vital records such as births, deaths, and marriages...
. He received the Gold Medal of the British Medical Association
BMA
BMA may stand for:* Backup Management Applications* Baltimore Museum of Art* Bangkok Metropolitan Administration* Bangladesh Military Academy* Baptist Missionary Association of America, an association of churches in the United States...
for his work in the field of biostatistics
Biostatistics
Biostatistics is the application of statistics to a wide range of topics in biology...
and was made a Companion of the Order of Bath
British honours system
The British honours system is a means of rewarding individuals' personal bravery, achievement, or service to the United Kingdom and the British Overseas Territories...
in 1880.
In The Sewer King, an episode in the 2003 British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television documentary series Seven Wonders of the Industrial World
Seven Wonders of the Industrial World
Seven Wonders of the Industrial World is a 7-part British documentary/docudrama television miniseries that originally aired from to on BBC...
, Farr was played by Norman Lovett
Norman Lovett
Norman Lovett is an English stand-up comedian and actor, best known for the role of Holly in Red Dwarf during the first, second, seventh and eighth series. His comedy has a quiet, dead-pan surrealism, and in 2000 he made a successful stand up tour, co-headlining with Chris Barrie, who played...
.
Biographies
- John Eyler, Victorian Social Medicine: The Ideas and Methods of William Farr (Baltimore 1979).
- Michel Dupaquier, William Farr in C. C. Hyde, E. Seneta (eds.), Statisticians of the Centuries (New York 2001) pp. 163–166.
External links
There is another photograph of Farr at
