This article is part of the Insight’s Uncharted Brain series.
In March 1946, just months after the end of the second world war, James Douglas began a pioneering and extraordinary study. Based on a representative sample of 5,362 babies all born in the same week of that month, the study began as a one-off investigation of the cost of childbirth and the quality and efficiency of obstetric services. From there it became the longest continuously running study of health over the human life course in the world.
