Yet even here
the gainsayers did not despair, and, when obliged to confess the
success of inoculation, they simply fell back upon a new
argument, and answered: "It was good that Satan should be
dispossessed of his habitation which he had taken up in men in
our Lord's day, but it was not lawful that the children of the
Pharisees should cast him out by the help of Beelzebub. We must
always have an eye to the matter of what we do as well as the
result, if we intend to keep a good conscience toward God." But
the facts were too strong; the new practice made its way in the
New World as in the Old, though bitter opposition continued, and
in no small degree on vague scriptural grounds, for more than
twenty years longer.[[57]]
The steady evolution of scientific medicine brings us next
to Jenner's discovery of vaccination. Here, too, sundry vague
survivals of theological ideas caused many of the clergy to side
with retrograde physicians. Perhaps the most virulent of Jenner's
enemies was one of his professional brethren, Dr.
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