A very mild day : calm + bright with slight W. wind. Saw some town cases cycling. Went to meeting of S.E.C. Division at Newtown1 : 20 present. McWhan2 read a very well put-together minute of last meeting in April. The question of capitation came up but no one almost [sic] spoke but it was carried unanimously that we support the [word deleted] Insurance Action Committee.3 Had tea. Cycled down via Bowden in 45 minutes + returned via Whitelee in 60.4
1 This refers to the Edinburgh Branch South Easter Counties Division of the British Medical Association (B.M.A.) held at Newtown St Boswells on 17 October. It was resolved to “wait on” Sir Thomas Henderson M.P. to “bring to his notice the views of the Panel Committees regarding practitioners’ remuneration”.
At the same meeting Dr Matthew James Oliver (1863-1951) was presented with a “beautiful rose bowl” in recognition of his services as secretary to the Division from 1913 to 1923 [“Meetings Of Branches And Divisions.” The British Medical Journal, vol. 2, no. 3278, 1923, pp. 205–205. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20434677. Accessed 12 Nov. 2023.]
2 Andrew Alexander McWhan (1881-1952), M.B., Ch.B., D.P.H., medical practitioner, School Medical Officer and Medical Officer of Health for Berwickshire.
3 In 1923 proposed cuts in medical practitioners’ capitation allowances were causing a good deal of resentment.
4 Dr Muir went out on the road one normally uses from Selkirk to Newtown, taking the Selkirk – St Boswells road and turning off to Bowden village at the Bowden Stand Dam Toll Post at grid reference NGR NT551,297, but he returned via a minor road south of the Bowden Burn through Whitelee, NT568,308, and perhaps Maxpoffle too, at NT558,304, eventually hitting the St Boswells – Selkirk road at some point east of the Stand Dam Toll Post junction.
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/26, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1923]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 