ix HE OPERATES ON THE EMPRESS 91 



said, " Let me take your own : I prefer it to any other " ; 

 does it not tell, he adds, a little romantic ? The patient 

 did not, it appears, stay in bed, although feverish on the 

 seventh, eighth and ninth days. She walked every day 

 in the open air from two to three hours, until the eruption 

 appeared, which was nearly coincident with the fever. 

 She had a sore throat from the twelfth to the fourteenth 

 day : she took solid food almost throughout, and returned 

 well to St. Petersburg on the twenty-first day. 



The Grand Duke underwent his operation on 2nd 

 November. This was again an anxious proceeding, as 

 the boy, about fourteen years old, was of a tender and 

 delicate habit, and had had trouble in his glands and throat. 

 He had been brought up by his great-aunt, the Empress 

 Elizabeth, in the most injudicious and extraordinary 

 manner. Dimsdale requested his two medical attendants 

 to assist, but they declined the responsibility, as did a 

 third ; they put, however, every information at his dis- 

 posal. A careful regimen of restricted diet, fresh air, 

 mild purgatives and bark, was carried out for some time 

 beforehand. The inoculation was made by a slight 

 puncture, no dressing was used, and the patient walked 

 out daily, even when feverish ; only on one day he lay 

 down for a while. There was considerable sore throat, 

 but he had the disorder very favourably : four pocks on 

 the face, and from twenty to forty elsewhere. 



Universal joy prevailed at these results ; for the 

 Russian nation in general adored the Empress and the 

 Grand Duke. The compliment and privilege Dimsdale 

 received were enough, he said, to make him distracted. 

 " I thank God," he writes, " that I have sense enough 

 to know that my consequence is like the fly on the chariot 

 wheel. Everyone is mad to be inoculated. It will be 

 impossible for me to avoid more business than I can 

 execute properly. Our patients consist of the first 

 nobility. I have been slaving all day : all the patients 

 go on well. I have been told by Count Panin (who could 

 not show me more kindness if he was my own brother) 

 that another honour remains for me eclatant was the 



