IJE Advance Access originally published online on July 26, 2007
International Journal of Epidemiology 2007 36(4):708-710; doi:10.1093/ije/dym150
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2007; all rights reserved.
The rise and fall of epidemiology, 1950–2000 A.D.*,
Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
In 1662 John Graunt, a London haberdasher, published his magnum opus, Natural and Political Observations ... Made upon the Bills of Mortality, and thereby established the field of epidemiology.1 Graunt brought to light a diversity of facts about human life and disease that had not previously been appreciated. He was the first to notice that the number of births and deaths of males exceeded those of females (by the ratio of 14 to 13); he noticed, too, that despite their greater mortality, men had less morbidity than women. Graunt quantified for the first time the high mortality in children, noting that one-third died by the age of five. He documented that plague actually claimed many more deaths than had been ascribed to it, and he demonstrated that the frequency of rickets increased over the span of a few years from zero fatal cases to a level that indicated a