1854 Broad Street cholera epidemic

Tufte's "successful" example of visual statistical thinking. John Snow plots cholera deaths on a London map, identifies the Broad Street pump as the cause, has the handle removed. Tom uses it to teach hypothesis-falsification, consideration of alternative explanations (people fleeing the neighborhood), and the role of outliers (the elderly woman who had pump water shipped to her).

So Tufte gives us two examples. One is John Snow. John Snow was actually the anesthetist to Queen Victoria. Why she needed her own anesthetist — have any of you ever been anesthetized? Anyway, he was a medical doctor. Tufte likes to point out that depending on how you display your data and analyze it, you may get better results than others. He gives us a successful story and an unsuccessful story.