Frost during night + some snow. Roads very icy at first but got quite soft soon. Motored to Glebe, Buccleuch Road, Cannon Street, Sunderland Hall – Mrs P better1 – Curror Street. Mrs Mackay [sic] was unconscious when I called at 1.30 + she died at 42. Of the 3 old ladies whom I have been attending for some time since she aet 73 has died first. Mrs Russell, 91 + Mrs Lawson, 84 still survive. Jean came at 7.30 looking decidedly “shilpit”3 + depressed.
1 Mrs Plummer – see diary entry for 18 December 1919
2 Jessie McKay née Bolton, died 22 December 1919 at Heathpark, Selkirk, aged 72, death certified by “John S Muir M.B. &c”; she was the daughter of Robert Bolton, ploughman, and Isabella Bolton née Fisher, and widow of Alexander McKay, confectioner
3 The Dictionar o the Scots Leid offers three definitions which are a reasonable fit: 1. Thin, emaciated, puny in growth, shrunken, pinched, with sharp starved-looking or drawn features, 2. Spiritless, craven, timid and 3. Cheerless, cold and comfortless, ungenial
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/22, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1919]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 