It is unnecessary to recite Goldson’s cases. Interesting at the time, they are now commonplace. He found that inoculation with smallpox was possible at an interval after vaccination, and that infection with smallpox was equally possible under the like circumstances. One case is noteworthy for its connection with Jenner. A seaman, named Clarke, was successfully vaccinated on 4th November, 1800, and, returning from a voyage to the West Indies was put to the variolous test on 24th March, 1802, when he sickened with smallpox and was sent to Haslar. To prove that his malady was really smallpox, several persons were variolated from him. The Committee of the House of Commons was sitting on Jenner’s first claim for public money, and Goldson wrote to Jenner to come to Haslar and see Clarke for himself; but Jenner was too astute to cumber himself with difficulties at a time when so much cash was in question. The case was mentioned to the Committee, but was treated as of no moment in presence of what they were pleased to regard as overwhelming evidence as to the perpetual virtue of vaccination. 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]