1777 Kelso Dispensary records – free online

[ScottishAncestry]

Hi Jacqueline,

I’ve wondered myself about the treatment, I wonder just how relieved or cured they really were! As time goes on the registers become more detailed although there is a period of poor records keeping in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Once I have transcribed the entire first volume I may track down a willing medical expert and ask them what they think, perhaps write a forward to the book with an explanation to some of the diseases. I know as an early dispensary/cottage hospital it’s already been studied to a degree.

I think it’s this kind of social history though that brings a family tree to life; it helps us understand to a limited degree what life was like. I also think it wonderful that all these people of limited means were receiving free medical treatment.

Thank you all for your kind words it spurs me on to transcribe the rest of the volume!

Emma

[hdw]

Hi Harry,

I see Richard and Janet were at the dispensary in the 1861 and 1851 census too: http://www.maxwellancestry.com/census/61transcript.aspx?houseid=79308015

It says skinner as occupation in the census; he must have had two jobs. Graham was there too, I suppose if she was around the dispensary for many years she would have learned on the job but it would be interesting t find out more. I will be in Edinburgh this week so I’ll let you know if I find anything of interest. It may even give an idea of wages etc. but I’m really not sure.

Emma

Yes, Richard was a journeyman skinner, from a family of butchers. I doubt if "Keeper" of the Dispensary meant much more than caretaker.

It's funny the way things go in families. Richard's married daughter Jemima Stewart and her husband Andrew Hogg, a tailor & clothier, moved to Edinburgh and seem to have prospered there as they lived at good addresses in the West End. They brought up Graham's illegitimate daughter Jane Stewart while Graham was matron of the Kelso Dispensary.

By 1901 Graham, now retired, was living with her daughter, sister and brother-in-law at 6 Palmerston Place in Edinburgh's West End, and shortly afterwards Graham and Jemima's half-brother James Stewart, a widower for the second time, came to Edinburgh to live with his married daughter at 2 St. Andrew Square. So the legitimate daughters of Richard Stewart were living along at the west end of Princes Street, while their illegitimate half-brother was living along at the east end. I doubt very much if they knew of each other's existence, although James certainly knew that Richard Stewart, skinner, was his natural father as he named him as such on his marriage-certificate when marrying for the 2nd time at the age of 56.

Harry

[parakeet]

Hi Emma

I was just thinking about the "hysterical complaints" and think it was probably womb problems, rather than what we now think of as hysteria.  It would be good, as you say to get aa medical expert or someone expert in "old" ailments to look at them sometime.

Am looking forward to the next lot.

Jacqueline

[MonicaL]

I think 'hysteria complaints' had a number of more extended symptoms.

There is this one, a classic interpretation, not commonly used today: Hysteria / Hysterics

A nervous affection, occurring almost exclusively in women, in which the emotional and reflex excitability is exaggerated, and the will power correspondingly diminished, so that the patient loses control over the emotions, becomes the victim of imaginary sensations, and often falls into paroxysm or fits. [Webster1913]

And then,

The Vapors / Vapours www.antiquusmorbus.com/English/EnglishV.htm

Reading on, there is this info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria ....which has kind of opened my eyes to the term  One more that I looked at www.billcasselman.com/dictionary_of_medical_derivations/fifteen_hysteria.htm

Monica  

[parakeet]

Hi Monica

Thanks for the excellent links. Very entertaining. I now think that hysterical complaints or hystericus or whatever they called it must really have been a "catch all" description for womens' complaints.

Isn't it fantastic that you can read about ordinary people's worries in 1777?

Jacqueline

[ScottishAncestry]

Hi Harry,

I was in Edinburgh yesterday and had a look at The Kelso Dispensary Minute book as well as other records relating to the Kelso dispensary. The minute book I had out covered the years 1859 –1884, although I haven’t read the entire volume as yet I have looked at some years particularly focusing on the expenditure that is recorded rather than the minutes of the meetings. I have photographed the entire book though ao I will read the rest when I get a chance. To answer some of your initial questions in the meantime though here are some notes I have made.

Notes form The Kelso Dispensary Minuit book, 1859 –1884, No 3 (NAS – HH71/3)

1860 –    Paid Janet Stewart, Housekeeper one years salary
1860 –    Paid Janet Stewart, for washing cleaning windows etc.
1874 –    Paid Graham Stewart for washing
1875 –    Paid Graham Stewart for Housekeeping
1879 –    Paid Graham Stewart for Housekeeping
1881 –    Paid Graham Stewart H. Keeper
1881 –    Paid Graham Stewart for washing
1881 –    Paid Graham Stewart for shovelling snow off footpath


There are also various references to R. Stewart, which I presume is Richard. It would seem that Janet and Richard where housekeeper and keeper respectively. After Janet’s death Graham seems to have taken over her duties until she eventually described herself as Matron.

Once I read more I’ll let you know.

Emma

[hdw]

That's excellent, Emma, thank you very much for that. Janet Stewart would no doubt be Richard's wife Janet, nιe Thomson. They are also recorded as living at 84 Roxburgh Street, so I'm not sure if they were popping in and out of the Dispensary at need, or actually living there at particular times.

I like the way Graham decides to style herself "Matron". We could have done with her snow-shovelling skills round here lately.

Harry

[ScottishAncestry]

Hi Harry,

Just found this too:

Octr. 16 1880 - Paid Graham Stewart, Housekeeper account for nursing John Archibald for 21 weeks, 10 pounds.


By the way, yes it says 10 pounds, we have both checked. I notice it does say account; perhaps there were cost involved in looking after the patient.

Emma

[hdw]

In the 1881 census Graham is enumerated in the Dispensary along with Elizabeth Symington, "patient", 21, and a Katherine Symington, "nurse", 59, who I imagine was Elizabeth's mother. But Katherine's true vocation was "slater's wife"!

I can't find Graham Stewart anywhere in the Scottish census of 1891, under any possible spelling of her given name or surname, so I think she must have been in England then.

Harry