Which physician pioneered the use of statistical graphics to improve hospital sanitation during the Crimean War?

Florence Nightingale pioneered the use of statistical graphics to improve hospital sanitation during the Crimean War.

Nightingale served at the British military hospital in Scutari during the Crimean War, which lasted from 1853 to 1856. She collected and analyzed data on deaths, showing that disease caused far more fatalities than battle injuries during much of the conflict.

Her famous polar-area diagram, sometimes called the coxcomb chart, presented these comparisons visually. Nightingale used statistics to argue for sanitation, ventilation, clean water, nutrition, and better hospital organization. Her reports helped influence British military and public-health reforms.

She was also a founder of professional nursing education. Nightingale should not be reduced to the story that she simply carried a lamp through hospital wards: her administrative, statistical, and reform work was central to her legacy.