“Getting it Down and Writing it Up: William Petty and Ireland’s Contemporary Ambitions for Clinical Research”

Talk by Helen Sonner Moore visiting  Fellow 2019

William Petty is well known for conducting the Down Survey and for his contributions to the development of statistics, demographics, and economics. However, his methods in the Down Survey can also be seen to have anticipated many of the methodologies used today in the conduct and management of clinical trials. This paper will contextualise contemporary efforts to create global standards for clinical research against William Petty’s methodological innovations in the seventeenth‑century Down Survey – and suggest that recognizing Petty’s connection to the rise of clinical trials raises interesting possibilities at NUIG for a practical response to the call by the Irish Humanities Alliance for ‘intensive engagement’ in developing interdisciplinary research between the sciences and the humanities.