Armstrong – Table of Contents

would allow the recording of two separate items of data. A separate card would be used
to record data on one individual in a study. To examine a specific item of data, a group of
cards would be stacked together upright, and the stylus would be passed through the
perforations or punched-out areas representing the data. Since the perforations had been
punched out to record the data, the stylus would lift out of the stack the cards that were
negative for the data. The cards not lifted out could then be counted to get the numbers
for the specific data information. The major time consuming task was recording or
punching the data into the cards. Research studies generating large amounts of data used
this system or variations of the system until the advent of mechanical and electronic
methods of calculation.
In the autobiographical interview with Wyndom Miles (8), Armstrong had some
interesting reminiscences about his experiences while doing the study: “Another
opportunity I had was an epidemic of influenza in 1920 in Kelleys Island. (Ohio). It was
the second wave of the epidemic (after 1918); they had pretty much escaped the first one.
It was an isolated place and we thought that was a place to make a thorough study. I was
sent up there and started in. I saw that it was going to be more of a job than one man
could handle, so I asked for an assistant. They [perhaps the Ohio State Health
Department?] sent Ross Hopkins, one of the first graduates of Hopkins Medical School
(JHU School of Hygiene and Public Health). He was a very good worker. When I went
out (to the island), I went in a truck loaded with sugar, and it was very cold weather. We
went out over the ice. The driver suggested I not bundle up too much and sit on the back
of the truck. When we came to a crack in the ice, the driver had 2 big planks which we’d
lay across the cracks and drive over. The day Hopkins came out, there was some thawing