Correlation and Application of Statistics to Problems of
Heredity 63 Oxford, and the three last were two men who
committed suicide under circumstances of great disgrace and
Palmer, the Rugeley murderer, who was hanged. There is possibly
little knowledge to be obtained from the result for a single
medical school, but comparative statistics for several would be
of considerable value. Chapter V deals with Normal Variability,
and Galton shows how the distribution depends only on the two
constants, the median and the quartile, and further that if two
individuals whose grades are known be actually measured, then
the median and quartile, and so the whole distribution of
variation, can be discovered (p. 62, footnote, and cf. our Vol.
II, p. 385). The origin of the normal distribution is
illustrated mechanically by aid of the " quincunx " (see our pp.
9 and 10). Nor is Galton able to avoid becoming poetically
enthusiastic in a paragraph headed The Charms of Statistics, for
he writes "It is difficult to understand why