Biological Variation and Quantification of Health: The Emergence of the Concept of Normality
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Johannes Büttner
Abstract
Historical research on the concept of normality, its roots and its development show that this concept has its sources in very different areas of scientific and medical thinking. Of great importance were:
a new theory of disease arising early in the 19th century supposing a continuous change from the healthy to the diseased state;
the examination of variation within and between species of plants and animals;
the clinical theory of constitution developed to describe the wholeness of the individual determined both by genetic factors and the influence of the environment;
the development of mathematical and statistical tools starting with the adaptation of Bernoulli's “law of the great numbers” and Gauss' and Legendre's “law of errors” to biological measurements by the Belgian astronomer Quetelet.
At the end of the First World War the concept of normality was first discussed. An idealistic “value norm” was set against a statistical “frequency norm”. Between 1920 and 1930 the principles of our present concept were accepted and the mathematical tools developed. It took several decades to introduce this concept into practical medicine finally being recommended by the IFCC.
Copyright © 1998 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
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Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial
- Predictive Medicine
- Standardization and Clinical Management of Lipoprotein(a) Measurements
- Evaluation of the Iron Status of the Newborn by Soluble Transferrin Receptors in Serum
- Quantitation of IgG and IgM Human Anti-Mouse Antibodies (HAMA) Interference in CA 125 Measurements Using Affinity Chromatography
- Neopterin Plasma Concentrations Predict the Course of Severe Acute Pancreatitis
- Objectives, Design and Recruitment of a Familial and Longitudinal Cohort for Studying Gene-Environment Interactions in the Field of Cardiovascular Risk: The Stanislas Cohort
- Total Carbon Dioxide Measured by the Vitros Enzymatic Method
- Evaluation of Glucocard Memory 2 and Accutrend® Sensor Blood Glucose Meters
- Evaluation of Circulating Type I Procollagen Propeptides in Patients with Paget's Disease of Bone
- Properties and Units in the Clinical Laboratory Sciences XIII. Properties and Units in Reproduction and Fertility
- Procalcitonin as a Specific Marker of Bacterial Infection in Adults
- Biological Variation and Quantification of Health: The Emergence of the Concept of Normality
