A Timeless History
Before paper, people cut notches in wood. A tally stick kept the account: the baker notched one for every loaf sold on credit, then split it lengthways so both sides held a matching copy. The English Exchequer kept its books on tallies for centuries — and when the old sticks were burned in 1834, the stoves set fire to the Palace of Westminster. Written lists came with cheap paper; Michelangelo's is one of the oldest.
SourceUK Parliament, Living Heritage: Destruction by fire, 1834 · Casa Buonarroti, Florence, Archivio Buonarroti · Image: 'Hij heeft veel op zijn kerfstok', woodcut, 1843–55 — Rijksmuseum (PD)
Science In Action
Working memory — the mind holds a few items at once: about seven, said Miller in 1956; nearer four, says Cowan • Chunking — group the items (all the vegetables, all the dairy) and many things become a few • Offloading — write it down and the mind is free for the next thing; the list remembers for you • Recognition beats recall — spotting a pushed slider is far easier than pulling a forgotten item from memory
SourceMiller, Psychological Review 63 (1956) 81–97 · Cowan, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (2001) 87–185 · Risko & Gilbert, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 20 (2016) 676–688 · Image: F. Bouchot, Les Petits Mystères de Paris, 1843–44 — Rijksmuseum (PD)
Arts
The market has always drawn painters. In Hendrick Sorgh's The Vegetable Market (1664, Rijksmuseum) the cabbages, carrots and baskets are painted with as much care as the faces — a shopping list in oils. Two centuries later a Paris lithograph shows a woman reciting hers to an errand boy: sugar, coffee, oil, a candle — four things, and a coin for him if he brings them all back.
SourceRijksmuseum, SK-A-717 · Rijksmuseum, RP-P-OB-41.235 · Image: H. M. Sorgh, The Vegetable Market, 1664 — Rijksmuseum (PD)
Applications Today
Aviation — after the first B-17 crashed in 1935, pilots wrote the pre-flight checklist; every flight has one • Surgery — the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist, tested in 8 hospitals in 2007–08, cut deaths from 1.5% to 0.8% • Every day — the shopping list, the packing list, the to-do list: the same tool, in a pocket
SourceSmithsonian National Air and Space Museum, 'On. Set. Checked.', Air & Space Quarterly, 2023 · Haynes et al., New England Journal of Medicine 360 (2009) 491–499 · Image: B-17 at Langley Field, Virginia, 1942, A. T. Palmer — Library of Congress (PD)
One more thingIn eight hospitals on four continents, a 19-point checklist read aloud before surgery cut deaths from 1.5% to 0.8% of patients — 7,688 operations, 2007–08.
SourceHaynes et al., New England Journal of Medicine 360 (2009) 491–499
Michelangelo's list is kept at Casa Buonarroti, Florence, on the back of a letter he had received in 1517.
Hij heeft veel op zijn' kerfstok (He has a lot on his tally stick) — a baker's boy shows a housewife her full tally stick and refuses further credit; six-line verse below — Anonymous printmaker — 1843–1855 — Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam — on loan from the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap; woodcut with letterpress, series 'Beroep en Bedrijf' — KOG-ZG-1-13-263 (https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/200716680)
