The statistics and public health in Russia (end of XIX - early XX centuries): foreign approaches in educational literature

Abstract

In Russia, since the end of XIX century the statistical method became the main method of cognition in public health (social hygiene). The article is devoted to the study of academic literature on theory of public health statistics in Russia and the USSR in the 1880s-1930s. The first experience in Russia of description of statistics in educational literature on hygiene is expounded in the lectures of F. F. Erisman (1887). In the 1920s, the German literature was used to compose Russian educational literature on social hygiene statistics. The English scientific tradition in statistics was reflected in the works of Yu. L. Pomorsky, compiled on the basis of the works of R. Fisher. In the 1920s and 1930s, complex mathematical and statistical methods were not claimed in social hygienic research in the USSR due to political attitudes.