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? Having found liberty in the truth, he reverted to Jenner’s writings, and reading them with opened eyes, he was not slow to detect and to demonstrate the laxity of statement, the contradictions, and absurdities with which they were pervaded. No reply was attempted: no reply, indeed, was possible. The surgeons of the Edinburgh Vaccine Institution issued _An Examination of Mr. Brown’s Opinions and Statements_,[167] but they merely carped over non-essential details, and left the main issues wholly unaffected. What they had to show was that Brown’s patients were either unvaccinated, or had not had smallpox; and unable to do this, they were unable to do anything.