ABSTRACT
The preeminent role of empiricism in medicine is to make observations, which are sine qua non in a medical setup. Observations on a group of subjects give rise to data. When data on, say, 200 patients with duodenal ulcer are available, how does one make sense out of them? One possibility is a graphical representation of the data. This is discussed in the next chapter. More commonly, a numerical summarization is done. Two initial steps for this are as follows: (a) Make a summary of the data in such a manner that none of their important features is lost. (b) Calculate a few summary values that can adequately represent location and scatteredness in the data. Does the representation in the literature really give you the right picture? The methods discussed in this chapter may provide you the answer.
