Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 921

THOMAS DIMSDALE (1712-1800) The present method of inoculating for the small-pox. Printed for W. Owen 1767 160 pp. 19.3 cm.

Dimsdale, descending from a family that was prominent in English medical affairs, studied at St. Thomas' Hospital in London and received his medical degree from King's College in Aberdeen. In 1768 he was invited to Russia to inoculate Catherine the Great and the Grand Duke Paul against smallpox. In gratitude for this service, Catherine gave him an outright gift of *L-10,000 and a lifetime pension, as well as several other honors including elevation to baron of the Russian Empire. The present work, published a year before his visit to Russia, became highly successful and subsequently went through seven editions and was translated into several foreign languages. The treatise gives a full description of Dimsdale's methods and also includes twenty-nine case histories of individuals he inoculated.

Cited references: Cushing D171 (3rd ed., 1767); Garrison-Morton 5420; Waller 2470 (1772 ed.); Wellcome II, p. 470

Gift of John Martin, M.D.