„Papież statystyki”, czyli Władysław Bortkiewicz i końskie kopnięcia
The “Pope of statistics”: Władysław Bortkiewicz and Horse Kicks

Summary/Abstract: Władysław Bortkiewicz was a Polish-Russian-German scientist and is re-called in contemporary text-books in the context of Poisson distribution and the number of deaths caused by horse kicks in the Prussian army. His influence, however, was much more than fitting empirical data to theoretical distribution. His achievements, today mostly forgotten, range from statistical theory (e.g. the law of small numbers), through probabilistic law of radioactive decay till the improvements of Marx economy. He was close to be granted with the priority in quantifying inequalities: he published a paper similar to Gini’s work and they had a dispute over priority on the subject (lost by Bortkiewicz). He was called by contemporaries “a pope of statistics”. To the group of his students and co-workers belong such important scientists as Emil Gumbel and Wassily Leontieff. The paper summarizes the life and work of Władysław Bortkiewicz.

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