Madame Dijana Vedric

Dijana and Petrikov outside their school, 105 AE.

**Madame Dijana Vedric** was the royal wet nurse for the Wilem Family of Fleur from 118 to 108 AE and later the assistant teacher to Lady Margo Wilem. She eventually would go on to help found the Petrikov Sanitarium for the Rehabilitation of the Insane and Malformed. She is an important figure in the field of Northern Modern Medicine.

## Biography

Dijana was born in Barland, somewhere near Lindholm around 138 AE to peasant parents. One of eleven children, Dijana was sent to Lindholm to work as a servant for the wealthy of the city at age eight. She ended up in the service of a family called Meltsov who moved from Barland to the city of Skjol in Fleur in the hopes of starting up a business there selling elaborately carved wooden goods in the Barland style. The young Dijana, then maybe fourteen or fifteen, ended up being impregnated by a local man. The Meltsovs were disgusted and removed her from their service.

Dijana began looking for work, eventually being hired as a scullery maid at the palace Verdenston after its expansion under Queen Taurinja Wilem of Flowers. When the Crown Princess' first daughter was born in 118, Dijana had been working at the palace for several years and had just had her third child out of wedlock. Needing a wet nurse immediately, she was chosen and began to live with the royal family in the high halls of the palace.

### As wet nurse to the Wilems

Dijana was not exceptionally good with children, though she did her best with the infant Imogen Wilem. Her mild nature in combination with her folk knowledge made her useful to the Wilems especially after the birth of Margo in 115 AE. Margo was born with an unknown disability that left her face paralyzed and her hand deformed. Dijana was tasked with the sole care of the baby, helping to discover ways to feed her alongside her mother Crown Princess Aryanja. Her work in getting the girl to eat, move her jaw, and communicate through gestures was key to Margo's later success in life.

During this time, Aryanja hired a man from Barland called Luka Petrikov to become Margo's full time teacher. Petrikov was well known for his work with the disabled in Barland, where he had been working on cataloguing and categorizing malformations of the body and spirit for his new book. He was ecstatic to work with Margo, who's syndrome he had never seen before. In his finished text *Guide to the Malformations of Body and Spirit as Dictated by God in Heaven: The Physical and Spiritual Ailments of the Human Animal* Petrikov would name her syndrome Margo Syndrome. Petrikov arrived in Skjol in 113 AE.

Together, Petrikov and Dijana worked to assist Margo in functioning as regularly as possible. Petrikov had previously been cautious to treat Margo as mentally competent due to her lack of communication, dumb look, and slow movements. However, once he and Dijana noted the underdeveloped shape of Margo's tongue and her crowded mouth, they decided to have most of her premolars pulled, allowing for more space for the muscle. Dijana began to drill the child in speech exercises, mostly consisting of the holding of the tongue to the roof of the mouth, repetition of syllables, and the manual massage of the jaw. Petrikov worked on designing teaching tools that would appeal to the girl.

During this time, Dijana was also still acting as wet nurse to the youngest of the children, Cycilia Wilem. Dijana was greatly strained by this, but eventually became celebrated for her success with Margo in 111 AE. By then the young girl was able to function as normally as she could, which was a joy to the Crown Princess. Dijana was rewarded with a great sum of gifts, while Petrikov was knighted and given land near the northern border.

Dijana continued to live in the palace as Margo's tutor while Petrikov relocated to his new property.

### Further Work with Petrikov

In 108 AE Petrikov contacted Dijana to ask her if she'd be interested in helping him with founding his new school which he hoped to call the Petrikov Sanitarium for the Rehabilitation of the Insane and Malformed. Dijana was allowed to leave the service of the Wilems to move to the school in the north. Her and Petrikov worked to develop a system of curriculum, medical treatments, and physical restraints for the incoming patients. In 107 AE the school opened to great success, housing poor invalids for study alongside the tutoring of the dull of the upper classes.

### Personal Works

Dijana developed the Theory of Psychic Degradation, the idea that anyone could experience rapid onset mental retardation if they were not mentally fit. She hypothesized that certain people were born with a weakened mental barrier, which she said could be physically seen in the subarachinoid space. Dijana argued that the thinner the space and the yellower in color the fluid in the space appeared, the more susceptible said person was to develop a psychic wound. Dijana's theory is still widely accepted in Northern Modern Medicine, though it is now used in conjunction with Mikael's Theory of Predestination. Dijana's theory was printed in Petrikov's medical journals and several tomes on Northern Modern Medicine and Psychic Divination.

At the School, Dijana worked with young women suffering mostly with retardation, hysteria, and homosexuality. She used a complicated combination of physical therapy, medicines, psychic healing techniques, and physical restraint to treat her patients. Her results were very successful. Her work on the study of the subarachinoid space led to the later development of trepanation and lobotomy as tools for medicinal treatment.

Dijana died in 74 AE at the age of sixty-four. She was buried in the schools mausoleum for noteworthy people, near to the Petrikov Family Mausoleum.

## Personal Life

Dijana had five children, called Olkovsky Kitomir, Elisaveta Kitomir, Natalya Vedric, Viktor Vedric, and Marfa Vedric. All survived to adulthood, with Elisaveta and Viktor following their mother's career choice by joining the medical field as well. Dijana was a chain smoker, being a major proponent in the medical use of cigarettes, something new to the north at the time. The practice had been imported from the Caldosi, who smoked a variety of plants in pipes and certain shells. Northerners did not pick up on the habit immediately, but Dijana pushed for the normalization of cigarettes.

Dijana was not readily available to care for her own children, being somewhat cold to them. Her son Olkovsky ran away at fifteen after raising his siblings while his mother was in the lab. Dijana was not very affected by this. Overall, the woman was cold, distant, but incredibly knowledgeable.

## Appearance

Dijana had dark hair, eyes, and features, with skin somewhat more olive toned than what is typical of those from Barland. She was of an average weight, somewhat tall, with wispy hair that went grey by thirty. In her old age she wore glasses. Mostly she wore the sanitarium uniform of doctor's frock typical of her time.