The Radiant Diagrams Of Florence Nightingale

This article is a tribute to the contributions of Florence Nightingale to statistics and statistical graphics on her bicentennial. We start with her most famous "rose" diagram and describe how she came to this graphic, designed to influence medical practice in the British army. But this study takes us backward in time to consider where and when the ideas of radial diagrams arose, why they were useful, and why we call these her "radiant diagrams."