It was seized upon eagerly by the anti-vaccination party, and I was quoted as the authority for its details.

In reply, the other side hinted pretty broadly that I was a person so discredited that my testimony on this or any other matter should be accepted with caution, an unjust aspersion which not unnaturally did much to keep me in the enemy's camp.

Indeed it was now, when I became useful to a great and rising party, that at length I found friends without number, who, not content with giving me their present support, took up the case on account of which I had stood my trial, and, by their energy and the ventilation of its details, did much to show how greatly I had been wronged.

I did not and do not suppose that all this friendship was disinterested, but, whatever its motive, it was equally welcome to a crushed and deserted man.
By slow degrees, and without my making any distinct pronouncement on the subject, I came to be looked upon as a leading light among the very small and select band of anti-vaccinationist men, and as such to study the question exhaustively.

Hearing that I was thus engaged, Stephen Strong offered me a handsome salary, which I suppose came out of his pocket, if I would consent to investigate cases in which vaccination was alleged to have resulted in mischief.