I was born in Italy, the second daughter of a very wealthy couple who were still on a two-year honeymoon excursion.

From an early age, I was tutored by my father, until I decided to enter the health profession based on "a direct call from God."

During the Crimean War, I led 38 nurses to the front to treat wounded soldiers.

While on the front and discouraged by the poor conditions, I wrote a series of papers on public health that included statistics on the numbers and causes of death.

To represent statistics in these papers, I created the first version of a pie chart....which led to my being the first female elected into the Statistical Society.