How mathematical epidemiology became a field of biology: a commentary on Anderson and May (1981) ‘The population dynamics of microparasites and their invertebrate hosts’

We discuss the context, content and importance of the paper ‘The population dynamics of microparasites and their invertebrate hosts’, by R. M. Anderson and R. M. May, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society as a stand-alone issue in 1981. We do this from the broader perspective of the study of infectious disease dynamics, rather than the specific perspective of the dynamics of insect pathogens. We argue that their 1981 paper fits seamlessly in the systematic study of infectious disease dynamics that was initiated by the authors in 1978, combining effective use of simple mathematical models, firmly rooted in biology, with observable or empirically measurable ingredients and quantities, and promoting extensive capacity building. This systematic approach, taking ecology and biology rather than applied mathematics as the motivation for advance, proved essential for the maturation of the field, and culminated in their landmark textbook of 1991. This commentary was written to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.