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Abstract:
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In 1662 John Graunt laid the foundations for statistics and epidemiology when he reported about the London Bills of Mortality. One of his objectives was a spatial analysis of the plague mortality. Here, modern spatial epidemiological methods are applied to his data to reveal further insight and demonstrate the power of statistics. The Bills of Mortality from 1625 as reported by Graunt are used together with socio-economic data to investigate the proportional plague mortality in 97 London parishes. A choropleth map highlights negative plague clusters as detected by the spatial scan test. Spatial regression modeling finds plague mortality negatively correlated with socio-economic status (i.e. the "percentage of rich households"), whereas "household density" is not. However, the later is an indicator for crowding and smoke exposure from fireplaces under the miasma paradigm and discussed by Graunt as a major indicator for the healthfulness of an area. Plague occurrence in medieval London was associated with socio-economic status, but although Graunt saw the signs he could not draw respective conclusions due to lack of more powerful modern statistics.
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