Another dry sharp day with some frost + a keen N wind but not so strong as yesterday. The roads were quite dry + there was even dust flying. I cycled down to Hospital where the baby Emond1 is very ill. Then out to Essenside2 calling for R Currie3 at Rockville. Found they had sent for me to see little George Heard4 who had a T. of 104. after tea. I had to go down to Bridgelands to see Js. Hardie5 (who left the Hospital yesterday) with Scarletina Rheum6. I felt rather fagged coming up Dryden’s Entries7 + had to walk a good bit. Mrs Mack + Helen8 were at the picture house.
1 Baby Emond was Margaret Stafford Emond (1920-1922), the daughter of James Emond, woollen millworker, and Beatrice Douglas Emond née Wight; she died 7 January 1922 at 1.30 a.m., aged 1 year 9 months, at the Infectious Diseases Hospital, Selkirk, usual residence 4 Chapel Place, Selkirk of “Diphtheria 23 days” certified by “John S Muir MB +c” [birth, 1920, 778/ 38, Selkirk; death 1922, 778/ 2, Selkirk]
2 Essenside, Ashkirk
3 Robert Currie ‘junior’ (about 1847-1923), hosiery manufacturer, of Rockville, Selkirk; the fourth of five generations at Selkirk with the given name Robert
4 George Heard, junior (1917-2006), of Essenside, son of George Heard, farmer, and Lizzie Davidson Heard née Bulman, married March 1914, Hawick [birth, 1917, 773/B 4, Ashkirk; parents’ marriage, 1914, 789/ 27, Hawick]
5 James Hardie (c.1841-1922), ploughman (retired), was Inhabitant Occupier not rated at Bridgelands Lodge, Galashiels in 1920 Valuation Roll – James Hardie, ploughman (retired), died 18 October 1922, at Bridgelands Lodge by Selkirk, aged 81, death certified by “John S Muir M.B. etc”; his widow was Margaret Nicholson (died 1926)
6 Presumably referring to reactive arthritis occurring after a Streptococcal infection [c.f. Green, C. A. “Epidemiology of Haemolytic Streptococcal Infection in Relation to Acute Rheumatism: III. Comparative Incidence of Various Infections and Acute Rheumatism in Certain Training Centres.” The Journal of Hygiene, vol. 42, no. 4, Cambridge University Press, 1942, pp. 380–92, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3860145]
7 Dryden’s Entries is at approximate grid reference NGR NT475,233 and is visible on Ordnance Survey 6 inch Roxburghshire, Sheet XIII, published 1863; to Dr Muir it represents the steep climb northwards from North Synton road end to Hare Moss on his way home from Ashkirk
8 Agnes Mackintosh née Watson, formerly Harper (1859-1946), of Elm Park, Selkirk and Helen Frances ‘Mousey’ Muir (1880-1963), Dr Muir’s third daughter and sometime housekeeper
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/25, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1922]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 