The Beauty of Diagrams – 09 Dec 2010

Today’s recording starts with the end of The Secret Life of Chaos. There’s a trail for Still Folk Dancing After All These Years and Come Clog Dancing. And a trail for Dirk Gently. Which I don’t appear to have in my collection. Hmm. Then it’s The Beauty of Diagrams – Florence Nightingale. Marcus du Sautoy looks at Florence Nightingale’s legacy not as a nurse, but as a statistician. Her Rose Diagram illustrates the different causes of death in the British Army in Crimea. “The red areas represent death from wounds. The black, death from other causes, such as frostbite or accidents. But the staggering number of deaths from infectious diseases like dysentery and typhus appear as large, blue rose petals bursting out from the centre.” Biographer Mark Bostridge: “So in fact, the main hospital at Scutari is constructed over a cesspool. So there are these poisonous gases escaping into the air, feces an inch thick moving across the floor. So when Florence Nightingale opens her office door, she’s…

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