go BARON DIMSDALE AND INOCULATION CHAP. 



they would not be susceptible. The Empress approved : 

 it was done ; and not the least symptom followed. They 

 were as Dimsdale thought protected, but it was in truth 

 by vaccination. 



He then inoculated three healthy children, to provide 

 matter for operating on the Empress. A message reached 

 him from the latter desiring him to fix a time, and to 

 bring one of these boys secretly to the palace in the night, 

 where he would find her prepared. " I could scarcely 

 believe my eyes," he writes, " for it seemed absolutely 

 improbable that her resolution would continue. How- 

 ever, in obedience to her commands, at nine o'clock on 

 Sunday, Oct. I2th, I was carried in a coach, taking the 

 selected child 1 wrapt in a pelisse with us, to a gate of 

 the palace ; and was met by Baron Cherkasoff, who 

 alone was entrusted with the secret, and conducted by 

 back stairs to a little room where her Majesty waited. 

 Here she was inoculated alone, with one puncture on 

 each arm. All this being done in the night, no one knew 

 of it, and I returned to my lodgings ; but next morning 

 privately slipped into one of her Majesty's coaches, and 

 with eight horses and three postillions was brought hither 

 (Czarscoe Selo) where her Majesty had arrived a few 

 hours before. A pretence had been found for her going 

 to this palace, and the inoculation was not known till 

 the fifth day. She has had the smallpox in the most 

 desirable manner : a moderate number of pustules, and 

 complete maturation, which now, thank God, is over, 

 and I find an inexpressible load of concern removed from 

 my breast." 



Dimsdale wrote an account of the Empress's case. 

 He gave her his mercurial powder on the fifth day, 

 followed by a dose of Glauber's salt, which was repeated 

 twice in convalescence. He had brought some of his 

 powder with him from England, but proposed to give 

 her some prepared by her own chemists. Her Majesty 



1 It is said that the boy, Markoff, was ennobled for his share in the operation, 

 receiving the surname Ospiennyi, ospa signifying smallpox ; the family now 

 occupies a high position in the country. Waliszewski, op. cit. i. 283. 



