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The term "epidemiology" appears to have first been used to describe the study of epidemics in 1802 by the Spanish physician Joaquín de Villalba in Epidemiología Española. Epidemiologists also study the interaction of diseases in a population, a condition known as a syndemic.
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- Historical development
epidemiology, branch of medical science that studies the distribution of disease in human populations and the factors determining that distribution, chiefly by the use of statistics. Unlike other medical disciplines, epidemiology concerns itself with groups of people rather than individual patients and is frequently retrospective, or historical, in nature. It developed out of the search for causes of human disease in the 19th century, and one of its chief functions remains the identification of populations at high risk for a given disease so that the cause may be identified and preventive measures implemented.
A variety of tools, including mortality rates and incidence and prevalence rates, are used in the field of epidemiology to better understand the characteristics of disease within and across populations. In addition, epidemiologic studies may be classified as descriptive or analytic, depending on whether they are intended to characterize disease or test conclusions drawn from descriptive surveys or laboratory observations. Information from epidemiologic studies frequently is used to plan new health services and to evaluate the overall health status of a given population. In most countries of the world, public-health authorities regularly gather epidemiologic data on specific diseases and mortality rates in their populaces.
Epidemiology emerged as a formal science in the 19th century. However, its historical development spanned centuries, in a process that was slow and unsteady and aided by the contributions of many individuals.
One of the first major figures in the historical development of epidemiology was the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, who is traditionally regarded as the father of medicine. Hippocrates is presumed to have written the Epidemics and On Airs, Waters, and Places, works in which he attempted to explain the occurrence of disease on a rational rather than supernatural basis. Hippocrates recognized disease as a mass phenomenon as well as one affecting individuals.
Another significant contribution to the foundation of epidemiology was made in the 17th century, with the work of English statistician John Graunt. Graunt was the first person to analyze the bills of mortality, which recorded the weekly counts of christenings and deaths in London. In 1662 Graunt published the results of his findings in Natural and Political Observations...Made upon the Bills of Mortality. He found that although male births consistently outnumbered female births, males no longer outnumbered females by the time they reached their childbearing ages. The transition occurred because males experienced higher mortality rates than females. Graunt also constructed the first life table, a statistical table that uses death rates of a cohort (group) of persons to determine the group’s average life expectancy.
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In the 18th century British naval surgeon James Lind, through his studies of scurvy, added to the foundations of epidemiology. On long naval voyages, scurvy could kill a significant proportion of a ship’s crew. To study the prevention of scurvy, Lind conducted the first modern controlled clinical trial. Selecting 12 sailors who were ill with scurvy, Lind divided them into pairs, each pair receiving a different dietary supplement. One of the pairs was given lemons and oranges to eat, and within a week the two sailors’ symptoms had disappeared. The symptoms of the sailors on the other dietary regimens, however, persisted. Lind’s findings ultimately influenced the decision by the British navy to make lemon juice (later replaced by lime juice) a compulsory part of sailors’ diets, which resulted in the eradication of scurvy from the British navy.
Although epidemiology is considered a new science, even before it was recognized as a science, it probably started in the times of the Greeks, who attributed disease causality to environmental factors influenced by the gods, the presence of epidemics, and the deadly toll of diseases were influenced by those factors.
Jan 1, 2023 · Epidemiology emerged as a scientific discipline in the seventeenth century when the conditions became ripe for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting population data. Population comparative studies were performed in the eighteenth century.
- alfredo.morabia@qc.cuny.edu
The history of epidemiology and biostatistics reaches far back in history with many milestones along the road. Some examples include:” John Graunt's “Bills of Mortality” (1662); Peter Panum's mapping of the contagious spread of measles in the Faroe Islands in 1846; John Snow's identification of the source of the cholera contagion in ...
May 28, 2018 · In an 1849 monograph, he postulated that cesspools might be spreading human waste to drinking water. This idea was met with scorn. For several years he mapped past incidences of the disease, compared neighborhoods and neighbors, and virtually invented epidemiology.
Jul 15, 2022 · In 1546, Girolamo Fracastoro first proposed the germ theory of disease in his essay De Contagione et Contagiosis Morbis, but this theory remained in competition with other theories, such as the miasma hypothesis, for many years (see What Our Ancestors Knew ).
