Goldson’s was a modest pamphlet—conjectural rather than demonstrative. He ventured to think it was possible that the efficacy of vaccine might be weakened by transmission from arm to arm, and that security might be restored by reversion to the cow—
The casual Cowpox is produced by virus immediately from the animal; while the inoculated disease is the effect of new matter generated by the action of the other on the human subject. Whether that new matter be possessed of the power to produce the same permanent properties as the parent virus, time alone can decide.
He likewise suggested that horsegrease might be inoculated on the nipple of the milch mare, and the virus used for equination. These and other points were advanced with a philosophic grace that ought to have commanded respect; but, on the contrary, his pamphlet was received with a howl of fury, and its author denounced as an ill-conditioned fellow—ignorant, prejudiced, pig-headed. It was safer to be pronounced anti-vaccinist than a vaccinator and harbour doubt as to any article of the Jennerian faith. Ring plied his bludgeon over the heretic, and Jenner wrote of him with malicious insolence—“All his reasoning is erroneous;” “his arrogance is increased by attention;” “he obstinately holds a veil before his eyes, and will not behold the vaccine light;” “one might as well contend with a blind man on the nature of a prism;” and so on. Goldson’s offence was that he laid his finger on some of the weaker points of vaccination; that his sight was too keen, and his reasoning too cogent. At this day the questions between him and Jenner are decided by vaccinators themselves in Goldson’s favour.[165]
Perhaps the most able attack on the practice of vaccination was delivered by Thomas Brown, surgeon, Musselburgh; and it is much to be regretted that his book, published in Edinburgh in 1809,[166] is so little known at this day. Brown had accepted vaccination, carried away, he admitted, by the common enthusiasm, and the unqualified audacity with which its claims were asserted—
The practice was introduced and recommended to the public by its Author as a perfect antidote and security against Smallpox without any exception or reserve, and capable of banishing Variola from the catalogue of human misery. I have no hesitation in confessing that I became an early convert and advocate of the new practice; and it is now eight years and a-half since I have uniformly advised and practised Vaccination, in which period I may safely say, I have vaccinated upwards of twelve hundred patients, and have only inoculated three at the positive request of parents. This course I persevered in until the present time, notwithstanding I met with several instances where it appeared to fail in giving security; some about three years after the introduction of the practice; a few more about two years ago; and those which make part of the present volume within the last six months.
An epidemic, in which his own perfectly vaccinated patients fell victims to smallpox, at last opened his eyes to the delusion in which he was walking, and to the perversity with which he and others had resisted the light of truth—
I am convinced from what has passed under my own observation for the last three or four years, that we have been all guilty of rejecting evidence that deserved more attention, in consequence of the strong prepossessions which existed, from the very persuasive proof of Vaccination resisting inoculation and exposure to infection, and from our judgments being goaded and overpowered with the positive and arbitrary opinions of its abettors. I am now perfectly satisfied, from my mind being under the influence of prejudice and blind to the impression of the fairest evidence, that the last time Smallpox was prevalent, I rejected and explained away many cases which were entitled to the most serious attention, and showed myself as violent and unreasonable a partisan as any of my brethren in propagating a practice, which I have now little doubt we must ere long surrender at discretion.
When Brown first saw the vaccinated prostrate with smallpox, he concluded that there must have been some mistake about their vaccination; “for after Vaccination it was impossible to contract Smallpox;” but the evidence of his senses gradually overcame the phantasy imposed upon him, and like an honest man he proclaimed his error, and verified the experiences whereby he had been reluctantly corrected. He set forth with all particulars forty-eight cases of smallpox following vaccination within his own immediate cognizance, and though aware of many cases outside that cognizance, he limited himself to what he could attest with personal assurance. He knew he would be told that the vaccinations had been imperfect, or that what he took for smallpox was some other eruption—
It is strenuously contended [said Brown] by nearly every author, and by almost every practitioner, that Vaccination is a perfect antidote against Smallpox, if the disease be properly communicated; and Dr. Jenner and his relative, Mr. G. Jenner, positively assert, that they have had not one instance of failure in their own practice. They all therefore, and without hesitation, refer the whole series of failures that have been brought forward to the sweeping power of imperfect Vaccination, or to the blindness and stupidity of the medical practitioner who cannot distinguish between Smallpox and Chickenpox, a rash, or bug-bites.
Nor did Brown rest satisfied with proving that vaccination did not prevent smallpox. He also showed the fallacy of the variolous test. He adduced twelve cases in which vaccinated persons had been variolated as if they had never been vaccinated. Also four cases in which vaccination and variolation were effected simultaneously, the diseases running their courses concurrently, proving there was no antagonism between them; and since they could occur together, what reason was left for supposing that one might not succeed the other?