At St. Petersburg Dimsdale was received with every mark of respect and liberal hospitality. He was introduced to the Empress, who was charming and gracious; and he was instructed to make the requisite preparations for the serious duty before him. He had to find pus, and to obtain pus he had to lay hands on a suitable sufferer from smallpox--a task which proved by no means easy. Having discovered a case to his mind, he had then to overcome an obstinate objection to the abstraction of virus. He had, at the same time, to find a couple of healthy young men, who had not had smallpox, on whom to raise secondary virus, for the Empress could not be expected to run the risk of smallpox without mitigation. His first attempt was a complete failure, and he had to report accordingly to his expectant patient. Catharine heard his report with philosophical equanimity, and left him to try again. At last he was successful, and at the palace of Czarscoe Selo on Saturday, 11th October, 1768, the Empress swallowed five grains of mercurial powder, and late on Sunday evening Dimsdale inoculated her with fluid matter by one puncture in each arm. She did well. From the time of the inoculation to the commencement of the eruption, she walked every day for two or three hours in the open air, and, on the 1st November, she returned to St. Petersburg “in perfect good health, to the great joy of the whole city.”[68] The Grand Duke was inoculated on the 30th October, and by the 22nd November had “perfectly recovered.” The Empress having played, the nobility had to follow suit, and Dimsdale was requested to proceed to Moscow to take them in hand; but at this time there was a new difficulty. There was said to be no smallpox in Moscow, and as Dimsdale could not inoculate without fresh virus, he had to inoculate two girls in St. Petersburg, designing so to time their disorder that he should arrive with them in Moscow in prime condition for business. One girl was a failure, and mishaps and delays on the sledge journey almost made a failure of the other. He did, however, reach Moscow in time enough to communicate the requisite infection to fifty patients, and in Moscow he remained for two months operating and playing the lion. Then he set off for home, and on his route through St. Petersburg found Catharine suffering from pleurisy, for which he bled her, drawing eight ounces of imperial blood. Then came the reckoning. In substantials he had-- £10,000 down; £2,000 for travelling expenses; £500 a year for life, to be paid in net English cash, and A superb gold snuff-box set with diamonds for Mr. Dimsdale. In honours he had the appointments of-- Counsellor of State; Physician to her Imperial Majesty; and Baron of the Russian Empire with descent of title to his eldest son. It was a barbarian’s style of recompense, paid under the eye of Europe. It cost Catharine nothing, for it is subjects who suffer for the extravagance of despots.