QUANTIFYING THE EFFECTS OF ANTI-VACCINE SENTIMENT ON THE SPREAD OF DISEASE

Anti-vaccine sentiment is as old as vaccination itself. In 1801, Edward Jenner published his results of the success of his early experiments on the smallpox vaccine, and by 1802, enough people were scared of it that political cartoonist James Gillray produced an extremely unsubtle satirical painting entitled “The Cow-Pock—or—the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation!”