Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dimsdale, Thomas
DIMSDALE, THOMAS (1712–1800), physician, was born on 6 May 1712. His grandfather, Robert Dimsdale, accompanied William Penn to America in 1684. His father was Sir John Dimsdale, a member of the Society of Friends, of Theydon Gernon, Essex, in which county the family have held property for centuries. His mother was Susan, daughter of Thomas Bowyer of Albury Hall, near Hertford. He was a younger son, and educated in the medical profession at St. Thomas's Hospital. He began practice at Hertford in 1714, and married the only daughter of Nathaniel Brassey, who died in 1744. In 1745 he offered his services gratuitously to the Duke of Cumberland, and accompanied the English army as far north as Carlisle, on the surrender of which he returned home. In 1746 he married Anne Iles, a relation of his first wife. He retired from practice on inheriting a fortune, but having a large family by his second wife resumed practice and took the M.D. degree in 1761. In 1767 he published a work upon inoculation, ‘The Present Method of Inoculation for the Small Pox,’ which passed through very many editions; and in 1768 he was invited to St. Petersburg by the Empress Catharine to inoculate herself and the Grand Duke Paul, her son. The empress herself seems to have placed perfect reliance on the Englishman's good faith. But she could not answer for her subjects. She had therefore relays of post-horses prepared for him all along the line from St. Petersburg to the extremity of her dominions, that his flight might be instant and rapid in case of disaster. Fortunately both patients did well, and the physician was created a councillor of state, with the hereditary title of baron, now borne by his descendant. He received a sum of 10,000l. down, with an annuity of 500l., and 2,000l. for his expenses. The empress presented him with miniatures of herself and her son set in diamonds, and granted him an addition to his family arms in the shape of a wing of the black eagle of Russia. The patent, embellished with the imperial portrait and other ornaments, is carefully preserved at Essendon, the family seat in Hertfordshire. In 1784 he went to Russia to inoculate the Grand Duke Alexander and his brother Constantine, when the empress presented him with her own muff, made of the fur of the black fox, which only the royal family are allowed to wear. On his first return journey he paid a visit to Frederick the Great at Sans-Souci, and on his second to the Emperor Joseph at Vienna.
When Prince Omai came to England with Captain Cook in 1775, he was much caressed by what Johnson called ‘the best company,’ and among other marks of distinction was inoculated by Dimsdale. A long account of him is to be found in Cowper's ‘Task,’ but no reference to his physician. Dimsdale was tory M.P. for Hertford in two parliaments, namely 1780 and 1784, and was the author of several medical works: ‘Thoughts on General and Partial Inoculation,’ 1776; ‘Observations on the Plan of a Dispensary and General Inoculation,’ 1780; and ‘Tracts on Inoculation,’ written and published at St. Petersburg in 1768 and 1781. At Hertford he opened an ‘inoculating house,’ under his own immediate superintendence, for persons of all ranks. He died on 30 Dec. 1800, in the eighty-ninth year of his age, and was buried in the quakers' burial-ground at Bishop's Stortford in Hertfordshire. There is an engraved portrait by Tulley.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 232–4; Gent. Mag. for 1801, i. 88, ii. 669; European Mag. August 1802; Smith's List of Friends' Books; information from the family.]