abstract theory, 74
acceleration, laws of, 38–39
accounting, 23, 81
accuracy, 96–97
Adams, Abigail, 73
administrators, 176
Age of Reason, 68–94
agriculture, 99–100, 101
Albert, prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, 126, 133
algebra, 58, 63, 69–70
All the Year Round, 149
American Revolution, 68
American Statistical Society, 127
anagrams, 64
Analytic Engine, 178
annuities, 47–48
aorta, 41
apportionment, 76–80
Aristotle, 35, 38
arithmetic, 18, 46
arteries, 41
astrology, 35
astronomy, 35, 40, 44
Aubrey, John, 51–52, 56
Augustus, Roman emperor, 29 “average man,” 139–40
Babbage, Charles, 127, 167, 178
Babylonia, 19
Babylonian captivity, 31
barometer, 44
Bartlett, Elisha, 111
Battle of the Pyramids, 21
Belgium, 137–38
Belmont Stakes, 33
benevolence, 70
Bentham, Jeremy, 70, 101
Bethlehem, 29
Bible, 28–31, 32
Bills of Mortality, 50–55
blood circulation, 40–45, 71
blood-letting, 109–10, 111
blood pressure, 72–73
blue vitriol, 97
body weight, 42–43
Boltzmann, Ludwig, 145
Bonaparte, Lucien, 96
bookkeeping, 18, 23
Boston, Mass., 86
Bowditch, Henry I., 110
Breslau, see Wroclaw Brewer, John, 50
Britain, see Great Britain British Association for the Advancement of Science, 149
Broussais, F. J. V., 109, 110
Buffon, Comte de, 75
Bulwer, Henry Lytton, 117, 118
Bungus, Petrus, 61–63, 61
bureaucracy, 18
calculating machine, 167
Cambridge University, 23
Canada, 89
Canada pamphlet, 88–89
cardinal points, 19
Carlyle, Thomas, 147–48, 149, 153
Cassini, Jean-Dominique, 65
celestial dimensions, 37
celestial mechanics, 112, 127
censorship, 121–22
census:
in Bible, 28–31, 32
in Colonial America, 32–33
in France, 96
in Great Britain, 31–32, 95
Hollerith tabulating machines used in, 179, 180
of Scotland, 68, 101–5, 104–5
in United States, 68, 76, 95, 96, 179, 180
chance, 145
Charles II, king of England, 56, 57
Chemical Revolution, 97–98
chemistry, 97
Cheops, Great Pyramid of, 20–27
Chronicles, 29–30, 31
chronometers, 97
churches, 19
circles, 81
climacteric weeks, 66
climacteric years, 66
clinical statistics, 108
Clough, Arthur, 165
Coleman, William, 107, 111
Collinson, Peter, 83
Colonial America, 32–33
Compte général de l’administration de la justice criminelle, 115, 128, 129
computers, 119–20, 180
Comte, Auguste, 143, 144–45
Condorcet, Antoine de Caritat, Marquis de, 112, 113
Congress, U.S., 76–80
conservation of mass, 98
Constitution, U.S., 68, 76, 79, 95
copper sulfate, 97
cowpox, 90
crime, 115–16, 138, 155, 171
Guerry’s studies of, 116–20
Quetelet’s studies of, 128–35, 131, 134–35
Crimean War, 158, 161–66, 168, 169, 170, 175
Cruveilhier, Jean, 111
cubes, 37
currency, 84
Daniel, Book of, 60
Darwin, Charles, 87
David, King, 28, 29–33, 96
death rates, 164, 168, 170, 174–75, 175
“Death’s Ciphering Book” (Morley), 150–52
Declaration of Independence, U.S., 70
demography, 45–47, 49, 86–88 see also population
de Moivre, Abraham, 33
Denmark, 95
Descartes, René, 65
determinism, 129, 155
diagrams, statistical, 173–75
Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences (Galileo), 35, 36, 38
Diamond, Marion, 167
Dickens, Charles, 148–50, 152–57
Difference Engine, 167, 178
disease, 163, 169
Disraeli, Benjamin, 149
Doctrine of Chances, The (de Moivre), 33
Donkin, Bryan, 167
double-entry bookkeeping, 18
Dürer, Albrecht, 81, 82, 83
Durkheim, Emile, 120
earth, 65
age of, 28
population of, 46–47
Edinburgh Medical Journal, 133
education, 117
Edwards, Jonathan, 90–91
Egypt (ancient), 19, 20–27
elections, U.S., of 2000, 18
Embaba, Egypt, 21
empiricism, 107
England, see Great Britain
English Life Tables (Farr), 166, 178
Enlightenment, 71
Ernest, prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, 126, 133
Esquisse d’un tableau des progrès de l’esprit humain (Condorcet), 112
Essai sur la statistique morale de la France (Guerry), 117
Essay on the Philosophy of Medical Science (Bartlett), 111
evolution, 87
expansionism, 88, 89
experiment, 36, 98
exponential growth, 86
Farr, William, 165, 166–68, 172, 174, 178
Ferguson, Adam, 69
Flamsteed, John, 97
food, 42, 87, 99 “four,” 59
Fourier, Joseph, 115, 126
France:
farm production in, 99
height of army conscripts in, 136, 136
insurrections in, 76
judicial voting in, 112
new republic wars in, 68
numbers in, 97–101
Parisian default on bonds in, 34
population of, 96, 100, 114
size and shape of, 22
statistical bureau of, 100–101
statistical tables of, 114–16
statistics on crime in, 115–20, 130, 131
Franklin, Benjamin, 98
advocacy of inoculation by, 90–93
Condorcet and, 112
magic squares of, 63, 81–83
Malthus and, 86–89
numbers and, 80–86, 90–94
Franklin, Francis, 90, 91
free fall, 38–39
free will, 129, 171
French Academy of Sciences, 112, 117, 119
French and Indian War, 89
French Revolution, 68, 98, 106, 112
Frenicle, M., 83
Freud, Sigmund, 106
Friday the Thirteenth, 59
Galen, 40–41, 42
Galileo, 35, 36, 38–40, 44, 65
Galton, Francis, 176
gambling, 33
Garfield, James A., 128
gases, 98
Gee, Joshua, 85
Germany, 103
germ theory of disease, 163
Ghent, University of, 125
Gizeh, Great Pyramid of, 20–27
Glasgow, University of, 69
God, 171, 173
gold, 84
government:
dependence on taxation of, 18
and numerical data, 57
Quetelet on, 172
reliance on numbers by, 19, 50
social systems and, 50
grain, 100
Graunt, John, 51–57
gravity, 38–40, 127
Great Britain:
army mortality in India of, 170
Bills of Mortality in, 50–55
census in, 31–32, 95
decision to acquire Canada, 89
dependence on numbers of, 50
hospital record keeping of, 169
Iron Act in, 88
judicial voting in, 112
military hospitals of, 162, 164, 165
population of, 57
see also Crimean War Great Pyramid of Gizeh, 20–27
Guadeloupe, 89
Guerry, André Michel, 116, 132–33
Hacking, Ian, 117, 119, 132, 133
Hales, Stephen, 71–73, 72
Halley, Edmund, 47–48
Hamilton, Alexander, 80
Hankins, Frank H., 132
happiness, 70–71, 103
Hard Times (Dickens), 153–57, 174
harmonic law, 37–38
Harmony of the World, The (Kepler), 37
Harvard College, 34
Harvey, William, 40–42, 44
heart, 41, 42
Heberden, William, 92
Heilbron, John, 96
Herbert, Sidney, 160, 162, 164, 165, 173
Herodotus, 25
Herschel, John, 146
Hindu-Arabic numerals, 18
Hirschman, Albert, 14
Holland, 46–47, 95
Hollerith, Herman, 180
Hollerith tabulating machines, 179, 180
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Sr., 110
Hooke’s law, 36–37
horses, 100
hospitals, 162, 164, 165, 169
Household Words, 149, 150, 152
House of Representatives, U.S., 77–79
Hume, David, 69
Hutcheson, Francis, 69–71
Huygens, Christiaan, 35, 64, 65
hypothetical reagent, 123
IBM (International Business Machines), 119, 180
immunity, 90
income tax, 17–18
India, 170, 176
Indian Sanitary Commission, 170
industrialism, 18
infants, 66
Ingenhousz, Jan, 91
inoculation, 90–93
Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, An (Hutcheson), 69
insanity, 95, 106
instruments, 44
“Interest of Great Britain Considered, With Regard to her Colonies, And the Acquisitions of Canada and Guadaloupe, The” (Franklin), 88–89
Ireland, 57
Iron Act (Great Britain), 88
Jackson, James, Sr., 110
Japan, 59
Jefferson, Thomas, 70, 73–80, 112
Jenner, Edward, 90
Joab, 29–30
John, Saint, 60
Johns Hopkins University, 141
Joseph, 29
Journal of the London Statistical Society, 167
Jowett, Benjamin, 176
Joyce, James, 121–22
judicial voting, 112
Jupiter (planet), 38, 64, 65
Kepler, Johannes, 36, 37, 44
Kepler’s harmonic law, 37–38
Keynes, Geoffrey, 56
Khufu, Great Pyramid of, 20–27
King David, see David, King Knight, Charles, 152
knowledge, 144
Knowledge Is Power (Knight), 153
labor theory of value, 84
La Condamine, Charles-Marie de, 34
Lagrange, Joseph-Louis, 99
land, 88, 89, 99
Laplace, Pierre-Simon, Marquis de, 112, 113, 126, 127
latitude, 44
Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent, 97–101, 112
Leibniz, Gottfried, 48
LeMay, Leo, 85
Leo X, Pope, 63, 83
life insurance, 47
life sciences, 40–45
life tables, 47–48, 166–67, 168
lilacs, 142
Linnaeus, Carolus, 80
literacy, 18, 117
Logan, James, 83
London, 47, 51, 52, 53, 55, 148
London Statistical Society, 127, 167, 169
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 158
longitude, 44
lotteries, 33–34
Lottin, Joseph, 132
Louis, Pierre Charles Alexandre, 108–11, 166
Louis XIV, king of France, 65, 96
Luther, Martin, 61–62, 63
Madison, James, 75
magic squares, 63, 81–83
Malthus, Thomas, 86–89
manometers, 72, 72
manslaughter, 132, 134–35
maple trees, 72
mapmaking, 44
marriage, 138, 171
Mars (planet), 65
Mary, 29
mass, conservation of, 98
Massachusetts, 76
Massachusetts Bay Colony, 32
matter, 98
Maxwell, James Clerk, 145, 149
Mécanique céleste (Laplace), 112
medical statistics, 108
medicine, 95
Melencolia I (Dürer), 81, 82, 83
mental disorders, 106, 107
Mercury (planet), 65
meteorology, 74
Methuselah, 28
metric system, 99
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 24, 25
micrometer, 44
microscope, 45
military, 96, 136, 136
Mill, John Stuart, 143–44
Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper-Currency, A (Franklin), 84
Monge, Gaspard, 21
Moon, 40, 44, 65, 66, 127
moral arithmetic, 69–71 “moral statistics,” 117
Morley, Henry, 150–52
mortality, see death rates Mortality, Bills of, 50–55
Moses, 28, 29
mosques, 19
motion, Galileo’s laws of, 35, 38–40
Mystery of Numbers, The (Bungus), 61, 61
mystic philosophy, 59–67
Napoleon Bonaparte, 21, 22
Natural and Political Observations Mentioned in a Following Index, and Made Upon the Bills of Mortality, 51
natural selection, 87
Neumann, Caspar, 48, 49, 66–67
New Astronomy (Kepler), 36
New Experiments (Boyle), 36
New Jersey, 33
New Oxford Annotated Bible, 31
New Science (Tartaglia), 36
New Testament, 29
Newton, Isaac, 35, 38, 40, 60, 64, 112, 127
New York, 33
Nightingale, Florence, 158–78
Nightingale’s “coxcombs,” 175–76, 175
Nile River, 22
nonarii, 66
Norway, 95
Nott, Josiah Clark, 111
numbers:
in Age of Reason, 68–94
application to life sciences of, 71
in Bible, 28–31, 60
converting names into, 60–63
Dickens and, 148–50, 152–57
in France, 97–101
Franklin and, 80–86, 90–94
in history, 19–27
Jefferson and, 73–80
in life sciences, 40–45
and measures, 95–97
new uses for, 95–113
new worlds based on, 36–58
Nightingale and, 158–78
as omnipresent, 17
see also statistics Numbers, Book of, 28
numerical law, 36
numerical method, 107–11, 166
numerology, 59–67
nursing, 159, 160, 162, 163
Obayashi Corporation, 25–26, 27
observation, 36
“Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind” (Franklin), 87–88
Old Testament, 28, 29
ordinateur, 119–20
Osler, William, 110
oxen, 100
Oxford University, 19
Padua, University of, 40
Paris, 34, 47, 114
Paris Observatory, 65
Parkman, George, 108
Parliamentary History of England (Cobbett), 32
Parry, Richard H. G., 23–27, 27
Passions and the Interests, The (Hirschman), 14
Pearson, Karl, 176
pendulum clock, 44, 97
Pennsylvania Gazette, 85, 90
perfect number, 65
Perrot, Jacques, 119
Perrot, Jean-Claude, 99
perturbations, 127
perturbation theory, 40
Petty, William, 52, 55–58, 73, 80, 84
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 48
phlogiston, 98
physical motion, 38
physiology, 40
Physique sociale (Quetelet), 132, 133, 138, 171–72
Pinel, Philippe, 106–8
plague, 51
planets, 37, 44
plants, 71–72, 72
playwrights, Quetelet’s studies of, 142
pneumonia, 110
poker, 33
polio, 93
political arithmetic, 57–58, 80, 84, 88
Political Arithmetick (Petty), 58
political economy, 153
political geography, 103
politics, 75–76
Pope, Alexander, 73
Popper, Karl, 37
population:
during American Revolution, 141
of Belgium, 137–38
of Breslau, 86, 49
of earth, 46–47
of England and Ireland, 57
of France, 96, 100, 114
law of increase of, 86–89
of London, 53
numerical study of, 86
see also census
pornography, 122
Porter, Theodore, 126, 145
precision, 95, 96–97, 99
pressure gauges, 72, 72
Principia (Newton), 35, 40, 60
probability:
advances in theory of, 111–13
Comte on, 144
development of theory of, 33
Fourier’s contribution to, 115
and Pinel, 106
Quetelet on, 127, 144
in twentieth century, 178
public good, 70
pulse rate, 41, 42
punch cards, 179, 180
punishment, 130
Putnam, G. C., 110
pyramids, 20–27
quantitative experiments, 98
quantitative social science, 126
quantity, 45
quarrying, 23–24, 25
Quetelet, Adolphe, 116, 120, 124–46, 131, 134–35, 136, 137–38, 155, 170–72, 174, 176
Ray, Catherine, 94
rebellion, 75–76
Recherches statistiques sur la ville de Paris et le departement de la Seine, 114
recipes, 45
Reid, Thomas, 69
Research on the Propensity for Crime at Different Ages (Quetelet), 129–30, 131, 134–35
Revelation, Book of, 60, 71
revolution, 75
Rich, Nathaniel, 32
Robert-Fleury, Tony, 106
Roman numerals, 18
Royal Society of London, 45, 48, 52, 57
Royal Statistical Society, 127, 169
Salk vaccine, 93
Samuel, Book of, 29–30
Sanctorius (Santorio Santorio), 42–44, 43
sanitation, 163, 164, 165–72 “Santa Filomela” (Longfellow), 158
sap, 71–72, 72
Satan, 29, 31
Saturn (planet), 64, 65
Scheutz, Edvard, 167
Schimmel, Annemarie, 60
science, 36, 37, 44, 64–65, 74, 149
Scientific Revolution, 19, 40, 60
Scotland, 68, 101–5, 104–5
Scutari, Turkey, 162
septernarii, 66
Seven Years’ War, 89
Shattuck, George C., 110, 111
Shays’ Rebellion, 75–76
shipping news, 85
silver, 84
Sinclair, John, 68, 101–5, 104–5 “six hundred sixty-six,” 60–63, 83
sledge transport, 24, 26
Small, Hugh, 166
smallpox, 90–93
Smith, Adam, 69
Smyth, Charles Piazzi, 20
social behavior, 136, 138–39
social conditions, 101
social physics, 133, 136, 139–40, 143, 145
social reform, 158
social science, 48, 126, 144
social systems, 50
sociology, 126, 143–44
Solomon, 31
“Some Account of the Success of Inoculation for the Smallpox in England and America” (Franklin), 92
spermatozoa, 46
springs, 36–37
squares, 37
see also magic squares stars, 44
statecraft, 95, 99, 103, 114
Statistical Congress of 1860, 170
statistical determinism, 129, 155
statistical diagrams, 173–75
statistics:
bureau for in France, 100–101
clinical, 108
to combat superstition, 66–67
creation of, 50
on crime, 115–20, 131
critics of, 147–57
Dickens on, 148–50, 152–57
Farr’s contribution to, 167
first example of analysis, 51
Graunt’s analysis, 51, 53–55
international movement, 124
medical, 108
Nightingale’s use of, 158, 168–77
of Quetelet, 124–46
reliability of, 140–43
Sinclair on, 103, 104–5
tables, 47–48, 114–16, 138–39, 147, 166–67, 168
Statistique morale de l’Angleterre comparée avec la statistique morale de la France (Guerry), 119
Stifel, Michael (Stifelius), 63, 83
Stille, Alfred, 111
Stone, Mervyn, 167
stone transport, 23–27
stretching force, 36–37
suicide, 118, 120, 138, 171
superstition, 66–67
surveying, 19
Sutherland, John, 165
Sweden, 95, 96
System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, A (Mill), 143
tables, statistical, 47–48, 114–16, 138–39, 147, 166–67, 168
Tale of Two Cities, A (Dickens), 148
taxes:
in Bible, 28, 29
in Colonial America, 32
on income, 17–18
on land in France, 99
in support of war in France, 68
Taylor, Frederick, 74
telescope, 40, 44–45
Temple of Solomon, 60
Théorie analytique des probabilities (Laplace), 112
“thirty-three,” 59–60
Thomas, Keith, 50
time, 97
time/motion studies, 74
Trade and Navigation of Great Britain Considered (Gee), 85
Traité médico-philosophique sur l’aliénation mentale (Pinel), 107
Trayned Band, 52
Treatise on Man (Quetelet), 136, 136, 137–38, 138, 139
tuberculosis, 109, 110
Turkey, 161, 164
Twain, Mark, 149
typhoid fever, 109, 110
Ulysses (Joyce), 121–22
United Kingdom, see Great Britain
University of Ghent, 125
University of Glasgow, 69
University of Padua, 40
urbanization, 18
usufruct, definition of, 75
vaccination, 90
value, labor theory of, 84
van Helmont, Johannes, 42
Van Leeuwenhoek, Antoni, 45–47
veins, 41
Venus (planet), 65
Verney, Harry, 161
vines, 71–72, 72
Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), 34–35
Walker, Helen, 95
Washington, George, 79
Webster, Alexander, 101
Webster, John White, 108
weeks, climacteric, 66
weight, 42–43
Westergaard, Harald, 66, 124
Westfall, R. S., 60
Wills, Garry, 69, 73
Winthrop, John, 32
Wisdom of Solomon, 28
wooden cradle, 24–25, 25, 26, 26
Woolsey, John M., 121–24
Wroclaw (Breslau; Poland), 48, 49, 86
years, climacteric, 66
yellow fever, 110