title: Sir William Petty: modern epidemiologist (1623-1687).
abstract: William Petty, physician, epidemiologist, political economist, demographer, cartographer, and administrator was an intellectual product of the seventeenth century. Petty was born in the year 1623 in Romsey, England of lower middle class parents; however, by the time of his death in 1687 he had become a knight of the realm, founder of the Royal Society, and friend of kings. Petty's life reflected the northern renaissance which induced such dramatic changes in science, technology, politics, and entrepreneurship. His education was eclectic, nonetheless he took his Doctor of Physic degree from Oxford in 1649 and became an Oxford don, where he spent the next few years as an academic before undertaking a definitive survey of Ireland on behalf of the Cromwell government. Ireland changed Petty's destiny and he became a man of the world and entrepreneur which stimulated his interest in public policy formulation and economics. It was Petty's peculiar genius to be innovative in the application of measurement, statistics, and mathematics to socioeconomic and demographic phenomena. As a physician he related his knowledge of health and disease to these phenomena in what in the modern context would be called human ecology or social epidemiology. These relationships and their measurement were employed to establish an objective set of data which could be analyzed for the purpose of rational public policy planning by the state. This scientific approach to public policy places Petty squarely in the context of modern epidemiologic and public health practice and marks the initiation of a major use of the epidemiologic method.
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Banta
mesh_terms: D004739:England; D004813:Epidemiology / Q000266:history*; D049670:History, 17th Century; D007494:Ireland; D011634:Public Health / Q000266:history; D012586:Science / Q000266:history