Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
| John Graunt | |
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| Born | April 24, 1620 London |
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| Died | April 18, 1674 London |
| Nationality | England |
| Fields | demography |
John Graunt (April 24, 1620 - April 18, 1674) was one of the first demographers, though by profession he was a haberdasher. Born in London, Graunt, along with William Petty, developed early human statistical and census methods that later provided a framework for modern demography. He is credited with producing the first life table, giving probabilities of survival to each age. Graunt is also considered as one of the first experts in epidemiology, since his famous book was concerned mostly with public health statistics.
His book Natural and Political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality (1662) used analysis of the mortality rolls in early modern London as Charles II and other officials attempted to create a system to warn of the onset and spread of bubonic plague in the city. Though the system was never truly created, Graunt's work in studying the rolls resulted in the first statistically-based estimation of the population of London.
The erudition of the Observations led Graunt to the Royal Society, where he presented his work and was subsequently elected a fellow. Initially, members of the Royal Society wanted nothing to do with Graunt, uncomfortable with the idea of a haberdasher being elected. Fortunately for Graunt, Charles II, who was King Of England at the time, ignored their rants and brought Graunt into the society.
Upon entering into the Royal Society, Graunt decided to convert to Catholicism at a time when prejudice against the religion was increasing. Due to his association with the religion, he was accused of taking part in the Great Fire of London and as a result was dismissed from his employment at a water company. With no financial support, Graunt lived the rest of his life in poverty, dying of jaundice and liver disease at the age of 53.
[edit] References
For Graunt's place in the history of statistics see:
- Hacking, I. (1975) The Emergence of Probability, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: Chapter 12, Political Arithmetic 1662.
- Hald, A. (1990) A History of Probability and Statistics and their applications before 1750, New York: Wiley. Chapter 7, John Graunt and the Observations upon the Bills of Mortality, 1662.
- Heyde, C. C. (2001) John Graunt, Statisticians of the Centuries (ed. C. C. Heyde and E. Seneta) pp. 14-16. New York: Springer.
For his place in the history of epidemiology see
- Morabia, Alfredo. ed. (2004) A History of Epidemiologic Methods and Concepts. Basel, Birkhauser Verlag. Part I.
- Other references
- Campbell, R B (2001), "John Graunt, John Arbuthnott, and the human sex ratio.", Hum. Biol. 73 (4): 605–10, 2001 Aug, doi:, PMID 11512687, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11512687
- Glass, D. V. (1963), "John Graunt and his natural and political observations.", Proc. R. Soc. Lond., B, Biol. Sci. 159: 1–37, 1963 Dec 10, PMID 14087990, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14087990
- Kargon, R. (1963), "John Graunt, Francis Bacon, and the Royal Society: The reception of statistics.", Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences 18: 337–48, 1963 Oct, doi:, PMID 14075439, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14075439
- Kreager, P (1988), "New light on Graunt.", Population studies 42 (1): 129–40, 1988 Mar, doi:, PMID 11613877, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11613877
- Lancaster, H. O. (1962), "An early statistician--John Graunt (1620-1674).", Med. J. Aust. 49(2): 734–8, 1962 Nov 10, PMID 13928392, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13928392
- Wynder, E. L. (1975), "A corner of history: John Graunt, 1620-1674, the father of demography.", Preventive medicine 4 (1): 85–8, 1975 Mar, doi:, PMID 1090928, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1090928
[edit] External links
- John Graunt (1620-1674), Text of the "Observations" and other Graunt materials are available on Western Washington University.
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Annotations
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“A contemporary of Evelyn’s, the self-made scientist-businessman John Graunt, created the tools that eventually allowed people to understand just how smoke and fires and other components of the world around us affect health. A prosperous merchant and art collector who lost everything in the Great Fire, Graunt was a master of assembling and making sense of ordinary information. He laid the foundation for the ways of categorizing, counting and rendering facts and figures that would later change the way people thought about the connections between health and the surrounding world. In 1662, Graunt published a short book, Natural and Political Observations made upon the Bills of Mortality, that summed up his years of sorting and analyzing who died, where, when and how. In immediate recognition of this work, Charles II personally recommended that Graunt be admitted to the Royal Society that same year. “
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I found another bio at the link below. Interesting to note that Capt. Graunt used shorthand to write down sermons.
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In the chart: died of ague 1660 #2148
along with consumption as the leading cause of death and then dying from excessive drinking…zero
Observations on the Bills of Mortality
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Graunt/bills.htmltable of casualty
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Graunt/chart.html
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Graunt’s portrait
http://www.stat.ucla.edu/history/people/graunt.gif.gz -
From Graunt’s entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:
… .Graunt’s place in the history of statistical enquiry is based upon his Natural and Political Observations
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the original for most of what we know about Graunt is “Aubrey’s Brief Lives”, that everybody is repeating, being the only information we have, discounting Pepys notes and his own book about demography.
The original was posted by the UCLA at:
http://www.stat.ucla.edu/history/aubrey.pdf -
Graunt’s mortality statistics
“Death in London: Establishing Credibility — Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How?”, Levine
An interesting modern analysis of Graunt’s statistics, from a methodological point of view (part of a course), in PDF format:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~mss/data%20analysis/002%20table%20of%20contents.html
(scroll down to “STEM AND LEAF II”)or, direct to the PDF:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~mss/data%20analysis/Volume%20I%20pdf%20/022%20Death%20in%20London%20Establi.pdf
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A slightly differing URL: from
Michael Robinson on Fri 21 Apr 2006, 10:31 am | Link
John Graunt/GrantFor a website devoted to Graunt, including John Aubrey’s biography, see:-
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Graunt/graunt.html
