LADY MONTAGU AND MODERN BACTERIOLOGY. 365 



Lady Mary's cipher. In the literary remains of the time, the 

 fact that she had preserved the beauty of her countrywomen is 

 mentioned ten times to one of the preservation of life. 



Lady Mary's thoroughly intelligent account of the process 

 shows that in her case the new idea had fallen into a hospitable 

 and enlightened mind, and although she did not live to see the 

 fruition of her efforts in the immense amelioration of the condi- 

 tion of her countrymen that took place later, there was wrapped 

 up in the process she had naturalized the germ of a mighty fact 

 of biology destined to spring up and bear a myriad of those leaves 

 that are " for the healing of the nations." When the value of the 

 operation was thoroughly appreciated there came upon the scene 

 some enterprising doctors who established what they called " in- 

 oculation houses" we should say now smallpox sanitariums 

 for isolation was needed to preserve the community, as the dis- 

 ease communicated itself as surely through voluntary sufferers 

 as when it had been taken unwittingly. Here the candidate was 

 put through a course of medication that to-day seems nothing 

 less than ferocious ; and one doctor Dimsdale rendered himself 

 so conspicuous as to be knighted, and the Empress of Russia sent 

 for him to inoculate herself and her son Paul. The bold experi- 

 ment was first tried on two young gentlemen of the cadet corps, and 

 afterward, a second experiment was made on four more cadets, be- 

 fore royalty ventured. Then the exalted candidates passed safely 

 through it, and Dimsdale says, " the Empress and the Grand Duke 

 were pleased to permit several persons to be inoculated from 

 them, and by that condescension the prejudice which has reigned 

 among the inferior ranks of people that the party would suffer 

 from whom the infectious matter was taken was most effectually 

 destroyed." Dimsdale was made Baron of the Russian Empire and 

 physician to her Imperial Majesty, and awarded ten thousand 

 pounds in addition to an annuity of five hundred pounds. As up 

 to this time every seventh child born in the Russian Empire had 

 died of smallpox, the royal conduct is to be commended. 



A careful sifting of all the methods and recorded experiences 

 of all the inoculators shows that the essential vital kernel of the 

 process grazed closely on Pasteur's " attenuated virus," and that 

 all their " cooling " and " dieting " and " strengthening " sank into 

 insignificance beside the one dominating point of using a benign 

 virus, if such a contradiction in terms is allowable. Much valu- 

 able knowledge in reference to inoculation was accumulated, and 

 some brilliant foreshadowings of modern knowledge as to the way 

 in which infection spreads were seen, but these discoveries were 

 soon to be thrown into eclipse by those of Edward Jenner. 



This great benefactor of humanity was born in Berkeley, in 

 Gloucestershire, in 1749, and at the time of Lady Mary Montagu's 



