THE EARLY YEARS
Francis Galton was born into a prosperous family of Quaker faith, on February 16, 1822, near Sparkbrook, Birmingham, Warwickshire. He was the youngest of seven children. Samuel, his father was a successful banker. His mother, Frances, was the daughter of Erasmus Darwin who was a medical practitioner, a natural philosopher and a poet. Galton was a cousin of Charles Darwin. Erasmus Darwin was a grandfather of Charles Darwin. Galton’s parents specially his mother, were keen on Galton’s taking medicine as career. Even though Francis was just a boy, his father wanting him to be acquainted with a laboratory at an early age, took him to frequent visits to a laboratory in Birmingham.
Initially, his father insisted on the idea that a personal tutor should come home to teach young Francis, given the fact that Galton had already learned to read and write at the age of two and half. He could read some French and Latin when he was five. At the age of seven he started to read Shakespeare for pleasure.
EDUCATION
He studied in several different schools. First, he was sent to a boarding school, something which he hated and would despise even later in adulthood. He was exceptionally brilliant at his studies.
He entered as apprentice to the principal house surgeon at Birmingham General Hospital at a young age of 16. At first he was set to work every morning to help in the dispensary. During his studies, he had many different experiences. He learnt the differences between infusions, decoctions, and extracts and how to make them. He gave the meanings of those words – Tea is an “infusion” made by pouring boiling water on the tea and allowing it to stand Coffee.
He made an experiment to recommend to the notice of students who may wish to taste ne plus ultra of bitterness. This was from quassia, the curious tree of South America, the chips of which are bitter. Once well-known “bitter-cup” is made of quassia wood. It quickly becomes bitter as soon as water is poured into the cup. Quassia is a valuable tonic medicine perhaps with one fault of cheapness.
ACCIDENTS
He has written in his autobiography that “The duties gradually imposed on me were to go with the surgeons on their morning rounds, always to attend in the accident room, where persons suffering from accidents were received whether in the night or day, and to help in dressing them, also to be present at all operations, and to take part at every postmortem examination, of which there were perhaps two or three weekly. The times of which I am speaking were long before those of chloroform, and many long years before that of Pasteur and Sir Joseph Lister. The stethoscope was considered generally to be newfangled; the older and naturally somewhat deaf practitioners pooh-poohed and never used it.
Burns were the commonest of the accidents at night-time. The sufferers were piteous to see. As a rule they did not complain much of pain, but they shivered from a sense of cold and were enfeebled almost to prostration by the shock. There was nothing to be done to them beyond cutting away all adherent clothing and the like, packing them in cotton wool and sending them to a ward. One particular ward was allotted to that purpose.
Broken heads from brawls were common accidents at night; then it was my part to shave the head, using the blood as lather, which makes a far better preparation for shaving than soap. The wounds were stitched together with a three-cornered “glove needle”, which cuts its way through the skin. Some riots connected with the “Charter” occurred at this time, and many people were hurt. It was curious to observe the apparent cleanness of the cuts that were made through the scalp by the blow of a policeman’s round truncheon.
It sometimes happened that a severe case was brought at night-time, which required higher surgical skill than could properly be expected in the house of surgeon, who, though professionally qualified, was young, and therefore relatively unpracticed. If the treatment of any such accident admitted of no delay, a messenger was dispatched to the house of the surgeon himself, to wake and bring him. One of these events made a great impression on me. It was that of a man, a small piece of whose skull had been depressed by something falling on his head and stunning him. He was brought in utterly unconscious, with the “stertorous” or snoring respiration characteristic of such cases. The man had to be trepanned, so the surgeon was sent for. In the meantime everything was prepared for his arrival. The trepan is a hollow steel cylinder with teeth cut out of its lower rim, used to saw a circular wad out of the sound bone nearest to the fracture. A miniature steel crowbar is used to raise the depressed fragment, and a rod to lay across the sound bone as a fulcrum for the crowbar. I seem to see it all before me as I write.’
SENSE OF PAIN
Galton in his ‘Early Medical Experiences’ wrote about the ‘Sense of Pain’ as under :
“I was surprised to notice few signs of pain and distress in the wards, even among the mortally stricken. I met with no instances of terror at approaching death, whereas the ordinary interest of life seemed powerful up to the close consciousness”. Galton further said, “it must be terrible to sensitive and stricken fellow-patient with all his senses still on the alert, when the death-hour of someone else in the ward arrives, and the curtains are drawn around the dying man’s bed to hide the scene, and again when his remains are removed to the post-mortem room.” However, he thought that all those things were more hideous to the imagination than in reality.
One piteous death-bed scene impressed him a lot. A girl was fast dying of typhus. He had been instructed to apply a mustar plaster. When he went to her, she was in her full sense and said in a faint but nicely mannered way “Please leave me in peace. I know I am dying and am not suffering.” He had no courage to distressher further.
He put himself into his duties with zeal, and loved neat bandaging and neat plastering. In Galton words, “I was fairly good even at tooth-drawing. I set broken limbs, at first under strict supervision, but was latterly allowed freedom…” Later, after a brief vacation, he was sent to the Medical Department of King’s College for a year.
During his studies at King's College, he stayed Newstreet, Spring Gardens, at the residence of Professor Richard Partridge who housed four more pupils like Galton himself. He spent a happy time at the professor's home, where the drawing room was provided to them for their studies along with a skeleton which they would study in their free time in the evenings. The days would of course be spent attending classes at King's College, but it seemed that position of a student at King's was very less instructive than that of an indoor pupil at the Birmingham Hospital, where the responsibility given to the students was great and there were no chances of a light punishment.
RESCUE
During his time at King's College, there was one very disturbing and near fatal incident that occurred. Once he was traveling on a steamboat, which was crammed with people. He had gone to see the Oxford and Cambridge boat race and was returning with steam and the tide. The arches of Old Battersea Bridge were narrow. It required efficient and competent steering on an occasion like this for getting through safely. On the steamboat, Galton was yawning greatly. He was standing behind the right-hand paddle-box. Suddenly, it crashed against one of the piers and split open just in front of him, giving a momentary view of the still revolving paddles.
He went into shock. He was conscious of two taps on the back of his head, and then water swirled over him. In a few seconds his wits had gathered themselves together, and he found himself submerged under a mass of wood, which later proved to be the outer sheathing of the paddle-box. It was a disturbing scene. The boats were put off from the shore. Amazingly, in this moment of peril, the man who went to him started bargaining on a price for his rescue, and even more amazingly, he declined such extortion outright! Sympathy was shown to him and the captain took special interest in him, fearing that he might have to pay certain damages. The only thing which pained Galton after this astounding escapade was the loss of his valuable watch.
After King's College, he took admission to Trinity College at Cambridge and undertook studies with a view to taking out a degree in medicine. However, his intellectual energies became increasingly focused on mathematics.
As a result, his intellectual skills were reflected on mathematics. Unfortunately he could not complete his mathematical studies due to ill health in the year 1843, an event which was soon compounded by the stress of having to care for his father through the course of what was to be a fatal illness. TURNING POINT
Galton eventually came to read Charles Darwin’s book – The Origin of Species, and was deeply affected by it. True to his religious background, he had previously held the firm belief that the Bible was the ultimate truth. Reading Darwin’s book shattered his beliefs and deeply disturbed him. He began to have symptoms similar to those which he suffered duringhis nervous breakdown at Cambridge, but soon he eventually got over them. Around this time he began to accept the implication of The Origin of Species which became the major turning point in his life.
The book reawakened the prevailing belief in Galton’s mind. Galton began to investigate matters of innate intelligence and studied the issue statistically by examining books, which contained the records of successful people. After this investigation of inherited intelligence, he wrote a book named Hereditary Genius. Galton wrote, "I propose to show in this book that a man’s natural abilities are derived from inheritance, under exactly the same limitations are the form and the physical features of the whole organic world."
He left Cambridge without obtaining the degree and pursued his medical studies in London. But before he could complete the same, his father expired, leaving him "a sufficient fortune to make me independent of medical profession." Then he was free to satisfy his craving for travel. During 1845-46, he started traveling, visiting Egypt and making leisurely expeditions to the Nile with friends and into the Holy Land, Jerusalem; and these were just preliminaries to a carefully organized series to unexplored parts of Southwestern Africa.
Galton consulted the Royal Geographical Society and then took a decision regarding the investigation of a possible opening from the South and West to Lake Ngami, which lies in north of Kalahari desert, 550 miles east of Walvis Bay.
Traveling to Africa in those times was not an elegant safari tour of the present. Many places on the map of Africa that are clearly marked today were just blank uncharted areas in 1849. The whole interior portion of South Africa and much of North Africa was just an unexplored wilderness which was quite unknown to civilised man, similar to the then unexplored and vast continent of Australia. The mysterious and virtually unknown geography of the North Polar regions preserved some of the earlier glamour attached to the possibility of finding a navigable North - West passage from England to China, which on inspection of the globe shows to be far shorter than that round the Cape. The South Polar regions had only been touched here and there. The geography of Central Asia was in great confusion, the true position of many places familiar in ancient history being most uncertain, while vast areas remained wholly uncharted. It was a time when the notions of individuals interested in geography were in a general state of uncertainty.
On April 5, 1850, he began his voyage. On board the East-Indiaman ship, LaDovsie, he learnt quite a bit about navigation using the old-fashioned instruments used in that time, a far throw backwards compared to the modern navigational equipment utilized in present day seagoing vessels.
The journey took Galton and his team deep into the vast continent through the lands of the Damaras, Ovampo, and Namaquas. The long expedition was tiring and grueling, and when Galton finally returned, he boasted that England still could produce "the best geographers of the day. They had gained valuable information in recognition of which he was awarded a medal from the Royal Geographical Society. They made him a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and after three years he was honored once more by being named a Fellow of the Royal Society.
In 1853, he got married, but sadly he never had children, a fact over which he would often claim grief.
MEDICAL EXPERIENCES
He was very keen at his medical works. He was always desirous of appreciating the effects of different medicines. As a result, he started taking small doses of all that were included in the pharmacopoeia, starting with letter ‘A’. It was an interesting experience, but at the same time it had some drawbacks. When he reached nearly to the end of ‘C’, he had to stop due to the effects of Croton oil. As he said, “I had foolishly believed that two drops of it could have no notable effects as a purgative and emetic; but indeed they had, and I can recall them now.”
In 1909, England honored him in recognition of his work and achievements by bestowing upon him a knighthood.
LAST DAYS
He resided at a charming house that had had built in Surrey, near Holmbury, St. Mary. Although he retained his house in Clifford Street for some years, where he occasionally made appointments with his old patients. At last the time came for abandoning it all. He lingered about the cold house and visited every part of it for the last time as he was affectionate in nature. Unfortunately, he caught a severe chill in doing so and ultimately died of pneumonia at the age of 89.
Sir Francis Galton was a British explorer, born in England. He is best known for his studies on heredity and intelligence. He was honored knightship in 1909 for all his efforts and scientific achievements. He founded the modern technique of weather mapping in 1860.
A cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton was among the first to recognize the implications for mankind of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. He, first used the word ‘eugenics’ to denote scientific endeavors to increase the proportion of persons with better than average endowment through selective marriage partners.
In short, Sir Francis Galton was a gentleman in pursuit of science and a pioneer in meteorology.
FEB. 16, 1822 Francis Galton was born.
1838 At the age of sixteen, he joined as apprentice to principal house surgeon at the Birmingham General Hospital in England.
1840 He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, with the view to receive a medical degree.
1845 His father Samuel passed away leaving him a handsome inheritance.
1850 He decided to use his financial freedom to become an explorer of Africa.
1853 Galton was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He got married. His work ‘Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa’ was published.
1859 Publication of the ‘Origin of Species’ by Charles Darwin made a marked epoch in his own mental development.
1860 Galton made significant impact in the fields of mapping and weather forecasting.
1869 He wrote Hereditary Genius.
1872 He wrote an essay, Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer.
1908 His autobiography Memories of My Life was published. He provided a vivid and disturbing account of his medical experiences.
JAN. 17, 1911 He died at the age of 89.
AS A SCIENTIST
He was a controversial scientist as he favored radical ideas and unpopular beliefs:
After his tour to Africa, he came to the conclusion and believed that the African people were incapable of adapting positively to western civilization. Galton once again blamed their heredity and innate ability for people to adjust, elaborating his theory of inherited human abilities. This made him more established and he started collecting the data in variety of ways and he manifested the innate theory of human ability.
Galton was strict in his belief that the innate foundation for human abilities on the basis of which he developed a set of tests to measure human ability. These tests were developed in Anthropomtric Laboratory. He had hoped that these tests would predict eminence in people early in their lifespan. The tests included several aspects. They are : Height, Sitting Height, Armspan, Breathing capacity, Strength of Pull, Strength of Squeeze, Swiftness of Blow, Keenness of Sight, Memory of Form, Color Discrimination and Steadiness of Hand. Galton described eminence, which seemed to be parallel to intelligence.
Ultimately he gathered data from over nine thousand individuals in the twelve categories that were identified in the testing battery. Those categories consisted mostly of objective measurements of differing physical characteristics. The numbers of tests were held, which measured some mental abilities like keenness of sight and memory of form. He hoped the data could be used to identify eminent individuals at a fairly young age, so that they could mate with other eminent personalities to encourage the overall strength of the genetic base in his society.
ANTHROPOMETRIC LABORATORY
Galton developed his tests into Anthropometrics laboratory, which was initially displayed at International Health Exhibition in 1884. It showed a surprising focus on the physical aspects of human kind and a lack of mental testing even though he had hoped to predict eminence in the mental arena.
EUGENICS
Although Galton finally compromised on nature-nurture issue, there was some doubt about his heavily favored hereditary side of the argument. This belief was the cornerstone for eugenics. To study this, he spent the second half of his life devoted to this subject.
His belief in hereditable human characteristics, led him to develop a theory with the aim to improve human stock by utilizing a selective mating programme. This was known as Eugenics. Through this programme he wanted to encourage the human race by mating eminent people together and as a result bring in physical and mental improvement in society at large.
It was possible to bring improvement in each human being, because the innate characteristics of each individual’s ancestry would descend itself in all future generations. He developed this theory by examining the family trees of outstanding people. It was revealed during the course of the examination that statistically significant proportions of those people were inter-related.
The limitations of such an examination was the incapability of appreciating the likelihood of similar backgrounds in education and experience that closely related individuals would probably have to share. This fact was also ignored in the other portions of evidence that he cited, namely examination of the "National Character" for different areas of the world and also a set of twin studies. Galton was one of the first to utilize twins in the study of genetic based hypotheses in human beings. He also contributed to a variety of other areas, which became the basis for testing individual differences.
His eugenic ideas were ruthlessly applied with horrific results in the 20th century. In the same century, in Germany, Adolph Hitler advocated eugenics.
ANTROPOMETRIC LABORATORY
Galton developed his tests into Anthropometric laboratory, which was initially displayed at International Health Exhibition in the year 1884. It showed a surprising focus on the physical aspects of human kind and a lack of mental testing even though he had hopped to predict eminence in the mental arena.
EUGENICS
Although Galton finally compromised on nature-nurture issue, there was some doubt about his heavily favored hereditary side of the argument. This belief was cornerstone for eugenics. To study this, he spent his second half of his life.
His belief in heritable human characteristics, led him to develop a theory with the aim to improve human stock by utilizing a selective mating programme. This was known as ‘Eugenics.’ Through this programme he wanted to encourage the human race by mating eminent people together and as a result of it, he wanted to bring in physical and mental improvement in society at large.
It was possible to bring improvement in each human being, because the innate characteristics of each individual’s ancestry would descend itself in all future generations. He developed this theory by examining the family trees of outstanding people. It was revealed by this examination that a statistically significant proportion of those people were inter-related.
The limitations of this examination was the incapability of appreciating the likelihood of similar backgrounds in education and experienced that closely related individuals would probably have to share. This fact was also ignored in the other portions of evidence that he cited, namely examination of the “National Character” for different areas of the world and also a set of twin studies. Galton was one of the first to utilize twins in the study of genetic based hypotheses in human beings. He also contributed to a variety of other areas which became the basis for testing individual differences.
His eugenic ideas were ruthlessly applied with horrific results in the twentieth century. During same century, in Germany, Adolph Hitler advocated eugenics.
NATURE – NURTURE
Galton, in his book Hereditary Genius, emphasized that a person’s abilities are inherited. But De Candolle an eminent scientist stated that heredity is not the only responsible factor for genetics but environment is also equally responsible. As a result, Galton made a further research that involved discovery of the effect of heredity and environment on scientists’ background.
He designed a questionnaire which the scientists were asked to fill out. Galton read over the many responses he received from lengthy questionnaire. He started realizing that in scientific field, the environment acted upon the tendencies, which were already present within the person at birth.
Finally Galton concluded that it was neither heredity nor the environment, which fully made a person’s abilities, what they were. To encompass the meaning of these two themes, he searched good phrase and decided on ‘Nature-Nurture’. This phrase was permanent and since 1874 the Nature verses Nurture controversy has been going on. He published his findings in the book “English Man and Science : Their Nature”. He took up twin-studies to know, to what extent heredity and environment play upon a person’s development. This is because, the identical twins are generally identical, and any difference between them would have to come from the environment due to this fact. But the invention of using twin-studies has no way helped to solve the nature-nurture conflict. In fact it gave another tool to psychologist in to quest for knowledge.
INTELLIGENCE TESTING
Galton wanted to develop a testing method. So as to identify, who the leading members of society were most likely have many children while they were still young enough. He also wanted to know if the young people would be able to marry an intelligent partner and have lots of babies. Therefore Galton founded the Anthropometric Laboratory to carry out those upon the general public. The test, which Galton had designed to measure intelligence reflected head size and other physical measurements of the subject and also their performance on various tests of reaction time and sensory acuity.
To Galton one of the important tests was the hat size or length and width of one’s head, Galton concluded that if a person was of superior knowledge, then they must have larger brain than the average person. If a person’s brain is larger, it is obvious that his head would also be larger to encase the larger brain. The bigger the person’s head, more intelligent that person would be.
It was an irony of Galton that he strongly believed this as his own head was small. He also tested the reaction of time as he thought that people with faster neuronal firings would be able to process information faster and be more intelligent.
Certainly, these tests did not measure intelligence at all. He did not realize that his tests were not tests of intelligence until he identified the way to represent all of his data showing relative strength of different hereditary relationships.
FOUNDER OF PSYCHOMETRIC
Galton deliberately searched the hidden influence on American experimental psychology, statistical analysis and its resultant functional psychology. He put lot of efforts and produced the journal devoted to the theory and practice of statistics. He wrote ‘Biometrika’ and established ‘Eugenics Laboratory’ at the University college in London. This was with Karl Pearson as its first director.
An American psychologist James Mackeen Cattell was the first to introduce Galton’s Statistics and its application to psychology. He assisted Galton in setting up his Anthropometric Laboratory. In the year 1888, Cattell introduced statistics into American psychology and initially taught in his first psychology course at the University of Pennsylvania.
CONTRIBUTION TO STATISTICS
Method of Ranks :
Being aware of the need to develop a method for assessing differences in intellectual ability and achievement, Galton formulated a method of percentiles.
He was inspired by Darwin’s evolutionary theory, therefore he marked the capacity each generation has over the succeeding one. For Galton, eminent man is someone who achieved a position that only 250 out of a million persons attain, or one person in 4,000. Galton claimed that he was the first to apply statistics to heredity and psychology of individual differences, introduced the law of deviation from an average. He asserted and concluded that the number of eminent men above average is equal to the number of idiots below the mean.
The statistical concept of grades, seemed historically for the first time in his book ‘Hereditary Genius’, which classified the most eminent men out of a million persons in the highest rank where as the stupidest in the lowest, the remaining 999,998 fell into fourteen classes equally graded.
Galton developed ‘Scales of Merit’ or ‘Percentile Scale’ and called for grouping the members as per the order of merit. By knowing an individual’s rank, one can decide whether he is making progress through years or if he is losing the ground. Galton graded it as ‘Centisimal grade’ (percentiles), the mid point of the scale being the ‘Median’ and ‘Quartiles’ for 75% and 25% grade. When this is put graphically, its diagram produces ‘Ogive’ (s-shaped) curve. He has stated that “the object of statistical science is to discover methods of condensing information concerning large groups of allied facts into brief and compendious expressions suitable for discussion.”
METHOD OF CO-RELATION
Galton in his important paper “Co-relations and Their Measurement, Chiefly from Anthropometric Data,” has explained it as ‘Co-relation or correlation of Structure.” He had devised the co-efficient of correlation through a concept he derived from his research on inheritance, found that “the children are partially determined by parental traits and partly by the race as a whole. He gave the name, ‘Regression’ to this tendency towards general mean. He experimented with sweet peas and found that the diameter of the daughter seeds positively related to that of the parent. He observed “when the deviations of the subject and those of the mean of the relatives are severally measured in units of their own Q, there is always a regression in the value of latter….” He finally concluded, “The prominent characteristics of any co-related variables, so far as I have as yet tested them, are four in number. It is supposed that their respective measures have been first transmuted into others of which the unit is in each case equal to the probable error of a single measure in its own series…..”
• I know of scarcely anything so apt to impress the imagination as the wonderful form of cosmic order expressed by the “Law of Frequency of Error.” The law would have been personified by the Greeks and defied, if they had known of it. It reigns with serenity and in complete self-effacement, amidst the wildest confusion. The hugger the mob, and the greater the apparent anarchy, the more perfect is its way. It is the supreme law of Unreason. Whenever a large sample of chaotic elements are taken in hand and marshaled in the order of their magnitude, an unsuspected and most beautiful form of regularity proves to have been latent all along.
• (Statistics are) the only tools by which an opening may be cut through the formidable thicket of difficulties that bars the path of those who pursue the Science of Man.
• A man’s natural abilities are derived by inheritance, under exactly the same limitations as are the form and physical features of the whole organic world.
In 1909 Francis Galton was Knighted, in England for all of his efforts and monumental achievements. He well deserved this honor.
In his later life, Galton created a faculty position at the University college, which stemmed from the Eugenics Record Office.
FINGER PRINTS
Galton was one of the first pioneers to investigate finger printing. Galton hoped that fingerprints were inherited. During 1880, British scientificjournal Nature published letters by the Englishmen, Henry Faulds and William James Herschel describing the uniqueness and permanence of fingerprints.
Galton experimentally verified their observations, suggesting the first elementary system. In this system he classified fingerprints on the basis of grouping the patterns into arches, loops, and whorls. His system served as foundation for the fingerprint classification system developed by Sir Edward R. Henry, who later became chief commissioner of the London Metropolitan police. In June 1900, Galton-Henry system of fingerprint classification was published and in 1901 it was officially introduced at Scotland Yard and soon became the basis for its criminal identification records.
A PIONEERING METEOROLOGIST
Galton was well established in British scientific circles, by late 1850’s. Later he became interested in meteorology. He was particularly interested in the question of weather climatic regularities might be recorded so as to allow accurate forecasting.
He circulated a detailed questionnaire to weather stations throughout the British Isles and Key European Centers, and requested them to give details of the weather conditions prevailing throughout specific month, December in 1861. He was able to demonstrate what had been hitherto unnoticed relations between wind speed, direction and barometric pressure by putting the data on a map using symbols of his own invention.
His findings were published in a monograph entitled Meteorographical. He has also discussed meteorological studies in his biography Memories of My Life.
