The herb she was looking for turned out to be one of the species of wormwood - Artemisia gmelinii Weber ex Stechm, which may be found in Eastern Siberia and in the Far East. The sap of this herb, called “kutchukta,” was used by the Siberian indigenous population for healing wounds in lepers. The local inhabitants also used wormwood in diarrhea, menorrhea, fever, and a range of other inflammatory diseases. According to modern experts in herbal medicine, Artemisia gmelinii Weber ex Stechm does have anti-inflammatory, haemostatic and antipyretic effects, though it can be used only as a symptomatic medicine.² However, 110 years ago no cure for leprosy was known, so that any rumors about healing properties of one or another medicine instilled hopes in doctors, nurses, and the poor sufferers. It is no wonder that Miss Marsden was also inspired with such a hope and rushed to St. Petersburg, where she shared her new ideas with the Russian Empress and made a plan for the expedition to the Yakut area in Eastern Siberia. 

Obviously, the Russian Empress was very impressed by Miss Marsden's proposed venture and provided her extraordinary support, which predetermined success of the expedition. Not only did the Empress provide the necessary funds for purchasing supplies, but she also granted Miss Marsden the writ of Her Majesty's Protection and the, so-called, open list - a document prescribing authorities in Russian provinces to provide every possible support for the mission and to cover any additional expenses. This conferred Miss Marsden enormous power in the eyes of all the officials that she met on her way, because from that moment on she was regarded as the Empress' envoy. It might seem unbelievable today, but in the country of almost absolute monarchy, as the Russian Empire was those days, such subordination was typical. As a result, every official tried to do his best to provide housing, transport, and supplies for Miss Marsden's mission and to fulfill her claims. It does not mean, though, that everyone did it with willingness and sincerity. They just did not have any chance to behave differently. 

It is rather peculiar that Miss Marsden was sure that everyone shared her approach towards the goals of the mission and believed that all the native people in Siberia were eager to meet her charitable mission and to provide all possible assistance. For example, she sincerely believed that the Yakut men voluntarily laid a road through the thick forest, leaving all their usual summer activities behind, working hard day and night in the taiga, as soon as they heard about the expedition's intention to provide help for the lepers. Such willingness would have contradicted the typical behavior of the aboriginal community in regard of their own lepers. Taking into account the fact that, typically, any person suspected in having contracted leprosy was to be expelled from the community and to be treated as an outcast, it is rather unlikely that hundreds of the Yakut peasants overcame their fears and changed their age-old habits in treating lepers with ultimate cruelty after a single appearance of a foreign visitor who could communicate only through an interpreter. The following extract from the report on leprosy in the Yakut area made by a group of Moscow doctors in 1934 confirms that the local people were forced to work on laying the road for Miss Marsden's mission. 

In the end of the nineteenth century, Russian society cherished much more sympathy towards American Indians and liberated black slaves rather than to the ethnic minorities scattered over the vast territory of the Russian Empire. Neither authorities nor the public demonstrated much concern in the problems of ethnic minorities. The aboriginal communities of the Siberian taiga were regarded as strangers, while their culture was considered primitive. Very little had been done to improve their living conditions or to provide medical help, although leprosy among the Yakut people had been reported yet in the 1820s. By the time of Miss Marsden's expedition the futile correspondence between the Interior Ministry of the Russian Empire and Irkutsk General Governor on the necessity to provide some funds for setting up a hospital for the Yakut lepers lasted for 64 (!) years. Since 1827 the governmental officials who inspected the area had been pointing out unanimously to the lack of any measures taken against the spread of the disease and every report had described the state of the lepers as “unbearably appalling.” Nevertheless, no measures had been taken to improve the situation, despite the long lasting exchange of the reports between the local administration officers and the Empire's authorities. The ministry's responses were invariably indifferent - “the state's finance cannot afford to perform such expenditures.”⁴ 

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