1856 Crimean War- Nightingale

Florence Nightingale was a talented statistician trained from an early age by her father’s connections in the Cambridge mathematics department. She met legendary mathematician Charles Babbage and believed fiercely in the power of statistics to effect social change. ‘Diagram on the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East’ was made to accompany her first book (which was 850 pages long). It showed that far more soldiers were dying because of preventable disease than from battle. This work was presented to Queen Victoria, who Nightingale convinced to fund research and changes in army and urban sanitation conditions.