Edward Tufte does not mention Nightingale in his book on the history of graphics, and he says that this famous 1869 chart by Minard of Napoleon’s dwindling army as it marched to Moscow and back in 1812/13 may be the best statistical graphic ever drawn:
Minard’s diagram includes a temperature chart which misleadingly suggests that Napoleon’s army froze to death. It shows the falling temperature during the retreat from Moscow, but most of the army was lost during the advance (300,000 men, vs. 90,000 in the retreat). Nightingale herself studied this catastrophe, and concluded that Napoleon’s army - like most others - had died of disease.
Like Minard’s, Nightingale’s most famous graphics illustrated what she called the “loss of an army” - the British army sent to the Crimea. She published them ten years before Minard’s. Hers also were more topical and conveyed a call to action - they were prescriptive rather than descriptive. She used recent data to persuade the Government to improve army hygiene.