Question

In your opinion, which person was the most influential, or what event was significant, in developing the new trends of Epidemiology? (William Farr) Please elaborate your answer and include references.

Answer 1

ANSWER:-

Being a conscious reformer, Farr opposed the Malthusian views in fashion in his lifetime. Against the idea that population grows geometrically while food supply can grow only arithmetically, he argued that human inventiveness could increase food productivity and, moreover, that plants and animals serving as sources of food also grow geometrically. Against English economist and demographer Thomas Robert Malthus’s idea that men reproduce akin to rabbits—without concern for the consequences of rapid population growth—Farr showed with statistics that in England the average age at marriage was 24–25 years old, about eight years after women reached reproductive maturity. He also showed that more than 20 percent of men and women who reached reproductive age never married.

As the statistician in charge of analyzing mortality data, Farr argued in an official report that hunger was responsible for many more deaths than shown in the statistics, since its effects were generally manifested indirectly in the production of diseases of various kinds. Although he was a supporter of the miasmatic theory of disease and had initially claimed that cholera was transmitted by polluted air, Farr was finally persuaded otherwise by English physician John Snow. In 1866 Farr produced a monograph showing that in London cholera cases were higher among people who received water from relatively low-elevation sources served by the Southwark and Lambeth water companies.

Being fluent in French, German, and Italian, Farr represented Britain in a number of statistical congresses and in his later years was considered a major authority on medical statistics and public health. Today he is considered one of the most-prominent figures of the movement of social medicine in Victorian England and a major author in the history of health statistics. Farr developed a classification of causes of death, constructed the first English life table, and made major contributions to occupational epidemiology, comparing mortality in specific occupations with that of the general population.