Page 472 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS355 Jean-Louis B.
common spirit, by a common method for a common end”. This statement is
still today a strong recommendation of all international and supranational
organisations to their country members. One of the first tasks of the newly
created ISI was the production of an International Statistical Directory, which
is mainly today into the hands of international agencies such as the UN, the
World Bank or regional development banks.
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Another important achievement of the ISC/ISI before the 1 World War was
the production of statistical classifications. The oldest classification to have
come into existence was the International Classification of Diseases and
Causes of Death [4]. First discussions about this classification were made
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during the 1 ISC in Brussels in 1853 among the different subjects that could
be candidates for international statistical comparisons. The 4 ISI session in
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Vienna (1891) marked the beginning of true international acceptance of
statistical lists of causes of death and sickness. Jacques Bertillon, Chief of
5
Statistics for the City of Paris , was asked to chair a committee that would
prepare a list for causes of death at the next ISI meeting; this classification was
adopted in 1893 during the 5 ISI session in Chicago. Early in the history of
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this classification, a revision cycle was established to keep the list abreast of
medical progress. In 1899, during its 7 session in Christiana (former name of
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the city of Oslo) ISI approved the proposal made by American Public Health
Association for a decennial revision of the list. Nowadays maintenance and
revision of this classification are made by the World Health Organisation
(WHO) based in Geneva.
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An interesting controversy took place in the last decade or the 19 century
about “representative methods”. This controversy followed a paper presented
by Nicolai Kiær, director of the Norwegian Central Bureau of Statistics, during
the 5th ISI session in Bern (1895): Observations and Experiments concerning
Representative Counts . The reactions of the ISI General Assembly against
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Kiær’s paper were violent and Kiær’s proposals were refused almost
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unanimously. Kiær reiterated his proposals during the 6 session in St.
Petersbourg in 1897 and the 8th session in Budapest in 1901 with the same
results despite support of Scandinavian and French delegates. After 1903,
sampling methods were excluded of the agenda of the ISI sessions until the
16 session in Rome (1925) where the ISI General Assembly approved the
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conclusions of a committee (Adolphe Jensen, Corrado Gini and Lucien March
were among the members of this committee) in favour of these methods.

5 Jacques Bertillon was the grandson of Achille Guillard who investigated the decision to
prepare a uniform disease classification during the 1st ISC.
6 The original version of this paper was presented in French under the title Observations et
expériences concernant des dénombrements représentatifs. French and German were at that
time the two main languages of the ISI.
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