Nightingale’s Rose
Florence Nightingale used this rose or coxcomb diagram to emphasize the number of deaths due to “preventible or mitigable zymotic diseases” in the Crimean War. Like Burtin, Nightingale employed a polar bar chart, though Nightingale employed a clever ordering of wedges by value to minimize occlusion. Color encodes the cause of death: blue is disease, red is wounds, and black is uncategorized.
For comparison, see the same data as a stacked area chart, a stacked bar chart, a grouped bar chart and a line chart. Which do you think best shows the data, and why?
Next: Playfair’s Wheat