crimea

British Army deaths by cause in the Crimean War

Monthly mortality rates from British military hospitals during the Crimean War (1854-1856), which informed Florence Nightingale's groundbreaking work in public health. Nightingale credits Dr. William Farr for compiling the data from the 1858 Medical and Surgical History of the British Army. Categorizes deaths into "zymotic" diseases (preventable infectious diseases), wounds/injuries, and other causes. Covering the period from April 1854 to March 1856, it includes monthly army strength alongside mortality figures. Transformed by Nightingale into her now-famous polar area diagrams.

The annual mortality rates plotted in the chart can be calculated using the formula

(Deaths × 1000 × 12) ÷ Army Size.

As The Lancet argued in 2020, Nightingale's innovative visualizations proved that "far more men died of disease, infection, and exposure than in battle—a fact that shocked the British nation." Her work also vividly illustrated the dramatic impact of sanitary reforms, particularly in reducing preventable deaths.

JSON 24 rows 5 fields 2.2 KB License not specified

Fields

FieldTypeDistributionSummaryMissing
date

First day of each month during the observation period, in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD)

 date Apr 1, 1854 – Mar 1, 1856 Missing 0
wounds

Deaths from "Wounds and Injuries" which comprised: Luxatio (dislocation), Sub-Luxatio (partial dislocation), Vulnus Sclopitorum (gunshot wounds), Vulnus Incisum (incised wounds), Contusio (bruising), Fractura (fractures), Ambustio (burns) and Concussio-Cerebri (brain concussion)

integer 0 – 287 · mean 73.25 Missing 0
other

Deaths from All Other Causes

 integer 5 – 361 · mean 72.83 Missing 0
disease

Deaths from Zymotic Diseases (preventable infectious diseases)

 integer 1 – 2,761 · mean 603.2 Missing 0
army_size

Estimated Average Monthly Strength of the Army

 integer 8,571 – 47,750 · mean 34,980 Missing 0

Profiled across all 24 rows.

Explore

Pick two fields. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan. Both fields have values in 24 of 24 rows.Pick two fields. Both fields have values in 24 of 24 rows. Vega-Lite · input binding · scale bindingVega-Lite · input binding
Open This Chart in the Vega Editor

Preview

First 5 of 24 rows5 of 24 rows
datewoundsotherdiseasearmy_size
1854-04-010518571
1854-05-01091223333
1854-06-01061128333
1854-07-0102335928722
1854-08-0113082830246

Scroll sideways for all 5 fields.

Examples

Not yet seen in any gallery.

This dataset is published and documented but no Vega, Vega-Lite or Altair example uses it. A new example would be a welcome contribution.

Provenance

Source
License

Not specified. Harvard Library - Digitized Content Copyright & Viewer Terms of Use (library.harvard.edu). Check the source's terms before reuse.

File
data/crimea.json · 2,183 bytes · View on GitHub