Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1558

ADOLPHE QUETELET (1796-1874) Anthropométrie, ou, Mesure des différentes facultés de l'homme. C. Muquardt 1871 479 pp., [2] fold. plates, illus., tables. 25.2 cm.

Quetelet, the Belgian statistician and astronomer, studied under Laplace at Paris. He served as professor of mathematics at Ghent and later at the Brussels Athenaeum where he was also lecturer at the Museum of Science and Literature. He founded and was head of the Royal Observatory from 1828 to 1874. Quetelet was a pioneer in statistics and played an important role in the development of standards in international statistics. He was also interested in the study of meteoric showers and developed methods for the simultaneous observation of astronomical, meteorological, and geodetic phenomena from multiple locations in Europe. Quetelet was among the earliest to apply mathematical methods of averaging and probability to the study of man. He developed the idea of the average man as well as that of vital statistics and presents many of those ideas in the present work.

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 171 (Paris ed., 1871); Osler 3753; Waller 7709

Gift of John Martin, M.D.