The Testimonial had great effect on the public mind: to the majority it was irresistible. As Ring said, “It confounded the enemies of the new practice”--adding in his characteristic vernacular, “and it secured the triumph of reason over the scruples of prejudice and ignorance, and the base manœuvres of sordid and self-interested men.”[120] Thus early was it discovered that an opponent of Vaccination was an ignoramus or a rascal. Ring’s easy arrogance is concisely illustrated in this deliverance-- It is no want of candour to affirm that those who are hostile to Vaccine Inoculation, are total strangers to it; those who are doubtful, are almost total strangers to it; and I defy the whole world to produce one single instance of a person that has had any experience of the disease, who is not a decided friend to the practice.[121] Jenner recognised his thorough-going supporter, and used his loyalty to strike at Pearson and others who failed to abide in like subservience. He wrote to a foreign physician-- The discovery which I had the happiness to announce to the world is much indebted to Mr. Ring’s ardent zeal and indefatigable exertions for the rapid progress it has made; while some of those _who vainly conceived themselves instrumental in promoting its adoption_ have in reality from _their ignorance and indiscretion_, rather retarded than accelerated its progress.[122] Wonder is frequently expressed over the rapid conversion of England and the world to Vaccination, but, as I have before remarked, wonder is much reduced when we set the circumstances clearly before us. Inoculation with smallpox to avert smallpox was the practice of the time, and it was not a universal practice simply because it was troublesome and dangerous: everybody believed in the saving rite; and where evaded it was as onerous and perilous duties are always and everywhere evaded by the indolent and cowardly. Inoculation with cowpox was introduced to the public as a substitute for inoculation with smallpox, equally efficient or more efficient, and neither troublesome nor dangerous. Thus easy and seductive was the transition from the one practice to the other. Jenner had no serious battle to fight: the contest was decided in the years during which inoculation with smallpox struggled for prevalence. The warfare that subsequently cost him so much irritation was conducted by the conservatives of Inoculation, as experience revealed the inefficiency and mischiefs of Vaccination. Resistance such as is now offered to Vaccination on physiological grounds there was none, so far as I can discover. It had apparently occurred to no one that smallpox was a consequence of the transgression of the laws of health, and was preventible by submission to those laws. It was imagined that the disease came by the will of God, or the devil, or by force of fate, and that to dodge it by medical craft was the utmost that was practicable.