In fact I think the most confusing aspect of the two diagrams above is that the previous year is to the right. Nevertheless, I think the Rose diagram communicates the passage of time particularly well, resembling as it does the face of a clock. I tend to agree that it’s generally easier to understand a single dimension like the height rather than area. Now, the Rose Diagram has its detractors, who argue it overcomplicates data that would be more clearly visualised by a bar chart. On the smaller rose to the left you can see the reduction once her new measures were in place. On the larger rose to the right you can see the deaths up to her arrival in April 1855 – most of these were not from wounds or direct combat, but from preventable diseases like cholera contracted during service or hospital treatment. The Rose diagram was born out of the need to show the before and after effect of her changes. However she had to find a way to communicate this to the British military establishment who believed that high numbers of deaths from disease were essentially unavoidable.
These measures, that included hand washing and better ventilation, enormously reduced soldier deaths. Florence Nightingale’s Rose Diagram showing the impact of sanitation measures on deaths in the Crimean War.įlorence Nightingale is well-known as a nurse, but not everyone knows that she also made an important contribution to data visualisation in the form of the Rose or Coxcomb Diagram, shown above.ĭuring the Crimean War (1853-56) she instituted more rigorous hygiene practices in British field hospitals.
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