Statistical methods in clinical and preventive medicine
By: by Sir Austin Bradford Hill ; foreward by Sir Robert Platt.
Edition: First edition
Publisher: Livingstone
Published: 1962
Place of publication: Edinburgh, UK; New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 620
Copyright date: ©1962
Description: A  BOOK by  the  Professor  Emeritus  of Medical  Statistics  of London  University, who  is also  an  Honorary  Member  of the  Institute,  covering  an aspect  of medical statistics  in  which  he  is  the  unchallenged  master  can  hardly  need  a  review,  its impact  is so certain.  These  papers  which  form  the  book  are reprints  of reports  of work  with  which  the  author  was  associated  and  which  provide  object  lessons  of how  to  plan  observations  and  experiments,  how  best  to  carry  them  out  and how  with  accuracy  and  clarity  to present  the  results.  The  author  makes  no  such claim  (the  reviewer  is free  to do so and  does)  but  asks only  that  they  be  accepted as ‘honest  down-to-earth  attempts  to carry  out  research  by  the  statistical  method . . . instructive  in  their  failings  as well  as in  their  virtues’. 
There  are  three  groups  of  papers  covering  respectively  the  clinical  trial  of treatment,  the  field  trial  of  vaccines,  and  epidemiology.  If  the  experience  of ‘A.B.H.’  rested  on  these  alone  it would  be  enough,  though  it  does  not.  But  it  is not  only  a  matter  of  experience.  What  is  it  that  distinguishes  this  so-called layman  working  with  and  accepted  in  his  own  right  by  clinicians?  In  his  own words  he  has  demonstrated that  ‘there  is  not  . . .  the  unbridgeable  gap  between the  statistical  and  the  clinical  approach  that  some  persons  seem  to  observe  or 
would  wish  to  create’.
Notes: Reprints of papers published between 1948 and 1960.
Contains Bibliography.
A Forward provided by Robert Platt