ix CREATED A BARON OF THE EMPIRE 93 



conferred upon Nathaniel Dimsdale. A few days lafter 

 Dimsdale was invited to a shooting excursion in the 

 country with the Empress and four of her noblemen. 

 The day was spent, he says, most enchantingly, " her 

 Majesty shot nine moorfowl and I shot four." On these 

 occasions, he adds, the Empress commands all ceremony 

 to be laid aside, and it pleases her to forget her greatness. 



At a later date Dimsdale and his son set out for Moscow, 

 having inoculated a little girl whom they took with them 

 to furnish material. Owing to delays on the bad roads 

 they were following the army marching against the Turks 

 the eruption came out before they arrived at the city, 

 where, however, they successfully inoculated upwards 

 of fifty patients. Whilst at Moscow Dimsdale suffered 

 from a severe pleuritic fever, but at the end of two 

 months' stay he returned to St. Petersburg by sledge. 

 Here he had to attend the Empress in a similar disorder ; 

 taking personal charge of her case, and undergoing, he 

 states, great anxiety on her behalf ; he bled her to eight 

 ounces, the imperial surgeon having refused to do so. 

 Happily she recovered, and at length Dimsdale and his 

 son were able to take their leave, and to return, laden 

 with gifts and honours, by the same comfortable mode 

 of travel, to their own land. En route they paid a visit 

 to Sans Souci, Potsdam, where they were graciously 

 received by the King of Prussia, Frederick the Great. 



Dimsdale returned home in 1769, and in the same year 

 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He con- 

 tinued to practise inoculation at Hertford, where he 

 opened an inoculation house l which was much resorted 

 to, and in 1774 he gave this treatment by the command 

 of the king to Omiah, a native chief brought from Tahiti 

 by Captain Cook. In 1778 he was engaged in a contro- 

 versy with Dr. Lettsom, who promoted a Dispensary for 



1 A small isolated house, now called the Stant Farm, and near to the 

 Hertford Gas-works, has been long known by tradition as once a receiving 

 house for sick persons, and was probably Dimsdale's Inoculation House. 

 It originally belonged to the same manor as the Priory. William and Samuel 

 Graveson of Hertford, and R. T. Andrews, Hon. Treas. East Herts Archaeo- 

 logical Society, have kindly afforded local information on Dimsdale. 



