Papers and reports

This paper is concerned with the application of probability theory to sickness. An attempt is made to explore the form, and in particular the standard deviation, of the distribution of the sickness experienced by a body of lives. It appears that, in the past, none but empirical investigations have been made in this field, the theoretical foundation being entirely lacking.

The present paper is divided into two main parts. The first half includes a short history of punched cards and gives a brief description of the equipment now available and the operations which can be performed. The second half is devoted to the application of the equipment to life assurance work. This is divided into three parts, office records, the production of forms, and calculations. Future developments are considered in a short section at the end of the paper.