In the summer of 1924, an outbreak of scarlet fever occurred in Flint, Michigan. Unable to trace it to the usual causes, particularly fresh milk, the Michigan Department of Health used a novel approach to disentangle the enigma: The 116 cases of scarlet fever were compared with 117 “controls” selected from neighbors of the quarantined …
First case-control study: ice cream spreads scarlet fever in 1924 Read More »
This is an illustration of the scale that Santorio Sanctorius used to conduct the first quantitative balance studies. His account in Medicina Statica was published in 28 editions and was popular for about 150 years.
Santorio Sanctorius was an Italian physician and scientist who conducted the first quantitative balance studies in human nutrition. Repeatedly over a 30-year period, Sanctorius would sit on a large scale and weigh all the food and drink he consumed and all the feces and urine he excreted and calculate the difference as insensible perspiration. “If …