PMC

The pattern of man slaughter cases for the 21 years.

Another illustration of a man knocking down acorns to feed swine. From a Book of Hours, made in France in the early 15th century. Beating of oaks to knock down acorns was commonly used to illustrate the ‘Labour of the Month’ for November, when pigs were fattened prior to slaughter in December. Image in the public domain courtesy of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Outline of the different steps of the study. AUT1: algorithm for automated detection pre-modification; AUT2: algorithm for automated detection post-modification; MAN: scoring of footpad dermatitis by a human observer based on the actual tangible foot; HUM: scoring of footpad dermatitis by a human observer based on digital pictures produced by the automatic system.

Edward Tufte has reproduced and commented so often on the statistical map of Napoleon’s march on Russia in 1812 it has become associated with his own work. It was prepared in 1869 by the French engineer Charles Joseph Minard. Tufte claims Minard’s map is one of the finest statistical graphics ever made, and one which exemplifies all the fundamental principles of analytical design. Tufte has memorably described this one-page narrative as ‘War and Peace as told by a visual Tolstoy’. Minard’s statistical map shows the successive losses of the French Grande Armée in Napoleon’s Russia campaign of 1812: the broad tan flow-line indicates the size of the army as it crossed into Russia in June, as well as the route taken to the capital. Of the original 422 000 troops, only 100 000 reached Moscow in September, which the Russians had deserted and stripped of supplies. After the largely wooden city went up in flames, the retreat in October is shown in black: the army’s geographical position is linked to the temperature scale and dates displayed on the rule at the bottom of the chart. Reaching in December the Nieman River where it had all started, the army numbered a paltry 10 000. In what is a summary document of slaughter, the attentive reader will also notice the abrupt decline in the width of the black line at another river: that was the occasion of the desperate passage of the partly frozen Berezina when 22 000 men died in 2 days. The chart is statistically and visually virtuous: it shows meaningful comparisons, it provokes thoughts about cause and effect (the plummeting temperature line is eloquent although it says nothing about starvation, desertion, typhus, and suicide) and its six multivariate dimensions are easily distinguishable. Above all, it integrates evidence, showing in one common visual field what many reports consign to an appendix or to segregated tables. Moreover, Minard names himself as author, provides five sources, and proper scales of measurement. He was deeply committed to the substance of his graphic: his map is as much about the pity of war as Wilfred Owen’s poetry.