The spread of Jenner's vaccine: social mobilization in the early nineteenth century.

Several books have been devoted in the past to the history of smallpox, for instance the classic "Smallpox" by C. W. Dixon, published in 1962 by J. and A. Churchill Ltd., London, which endeavors to present both the clinical and public health aspects of the disease. More recently, 2 very important books have been written on the history of smallpox, one in the United States, by Donald R. Hopkins, assistant surgeon general of the United States and deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, entitled "Princes and Peasants, Smallpox in History," published in 1983, the other one in France, by Yves-Marie Berce, professor of modern history at the University of Reims, entitled "Le Caudron et la Lancette, Croyances Populaires et Medecine Preventive (1798-1830), "published in 1984. Among the many topics which these 2 recent books address, a most important question for today's strategies is extensively documented: how did the Jenner vaccine spread over the world in 10 years? Some of the significant answers which the works of Donald R. Hopkins and Yves-Marie Berce provide are excerpted and adapted in this article.