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William Farr CB (30 November 1807 – 14 April 1883) was a British epidemiologist, regarded as one of the founders of medical statistics.
Farr returned to England in 1831 and continued his studies at University College London, qualifying as a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in March 1832. He married in 1833 and started a medical practice in Fitzroy Square, London. He became involved in medical journalism and statistics.
Farr 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 of different occupations to be compared.
"If the latent cause of epidemics cannot be discovered, the mode in which it operates may be investigated. The laws of its action may be determined by observation, as well as the circumstances in which epidemics arise, or by which they may be controlled."(Farr, 1840), p. 95.
He showed that during the smallpox epidemic, a plot of the number of deaths per quarter followed a roughly bell-shaped or "normal curve", On p. 97, Farr stated that during a recent smallpox epidemic, the number of deaths versus time followed a roughly normal curve: "The rates vary with the density of the population, the numbers susceptible of attack, the mortality, and the accidental circumstances; so that to obtain the mean rates applicable to the whole population, or to any portion of the population, several epidemics should be investigated. It appears probable, however, that the small-pox increases at an accelerated and then a retarded rate; that it declines first at a slightly accelerated, and at a rapidly accelerated, and lastly at a retarded rate, until the disease attains the minimum intensity, and remains stationary." From p. 250: "He specially considered the decline of the smallpox epidemic, and fitted the figures to a curve calculated by a method described. Though he gives no equation of the form of the curve, it is quite obviously the normal curve of error." and that recent epidemics of other diseases had followed a similar pattern.(Farr, 1840), p. 98. "Table (q) exhibits the progress of four more epidemic diseases in the metropolis, – measles, typhus, hooping-cough, and scarlatina, – which have not yet been effectively controlled by medical science. They exhibit the same regularity, but the laws which govern their course will be more conveniently discussed when the abstract of the observations has been extended over another year."
During the 1853-54 epidemic, Farr gathered more statistical evidence. During focused study of the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak, the physician John Snow used data supplied by the GRO and applied the (now accepted) mechanism for transmission he had proposed in 1849:Snow, John. 1849. On the Mode of Communication of Cholera. London: John Churchill. people were infected by swallowing something, and it multiplied in the . Snow also examined mortality statistics compiled by the GRO for people supplied with water from two companies in South London – the Southwark & Vauxhall Company (which drew contaminated water from low in the Thames basin) and the Lambeth Water Company (which drew cleaner water from further up the Thames) – and found Southwark & Vauxhall customers were especially likely to suffer.Aschengrau, A. & Seage, G. R. (2008). Essentials of epidemiology in public health. Pg:15-21 Sudbury, Mass.: Jones And Bartlett Publishers. Farr took part in the General Board of Health's 1854 Committee for Scientific Enquiries. The conventional explanation for cholera was still multifactorial; Snow's view of cholera as solely caused by a pathogen was not accepted, though his evidence was taken seriously. Farr's research was detailed and showed an inverse correlation of mortality and elevation.
There was a further epidemic in 1866, by which time Snow had died, and Farr had accepted 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. Farr's work was then considered conclusive.
In 1862 Farr was paid £300 () for producing a report on the Metropolitan Police Superannuation Fund, an early pension provision for that organisation. He also 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, the position going to Sir Brydges Henniker. The same year, Farr received as honours a Companionship of the Bath and the Gold Medal of the British Medical Association for his work in the field of biostatistics.
In his last years, Farr's approach had become obsolescent. Bacteriology had changed the face of the medical issues, and statistics became an increasingly mathematic tool. Medical reformers, too, changed approach, expecting less from legislation and central government.
Farr died aged 75 at his home in Maida Vale, London, and was buried in the churchyard at Holy Trinity, Bromley Common.
Farr exploited his GRO post compiling abstracts in a way that went beyond the original job description. In so doing he applied the techniques of the English actuary Benjamin Gompertz (the Gompertz curve), and the closely allied statistical "law of mortality" of his fellow actuary Thomas Rowe Edmonds. Farr, by relying on the existing mathematical model of mortality, could use data sampling to cut back the required computation. From the GRO data he constructed a series of national life tables.
The theory of zymotic disease was Farr's contribution to the debate on aetiology. He identified urbanisation and population density as public health issues. In terms of nosology he classed epidemic, endemic and contagious diseases as "zymotic", seen as diseases of filth and overcrowding.
A selection of his statistical writings was published in 1885, edited by Noël Humphreys.
In 1884, Farriolla, which is a genus of fungi in the Ascomycota phylum, was named in William Farr's honour.
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