How Medical Statistics has been established at the University of Freiburg: a historical perspective

Abstract

This contribution gives an outline on the reasons why the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Freiburg established an Institute of Medical Statistics and Documentation about fourty years ago as one of the first in Germany. It will be shown that the Professor of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene at that time initiated and promoted this development being himself motivated by the successful implementation of a vaccine against poliomyelitis through rigorous design, conduct and statistical analysis of a large scale field trial.

Keywords

• medical statistics
• Salk Polio Vaccine Trial
• historical development