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"Survey return from John Lamont"
Halin In Waternish, Dunvegan.
1850.
RCP/COL/4/8/137
John Lamont was a church minister in Dunvegan.
Waternish, including Halin, was a district within the parish of Duirinish. For further information on the area and the parish, see the entry for Duirinish. There were no mentions Hallin/Halin in available sources, thus this entry was created for the wider district of Waternish.
[[Addressee]]
The Revd
John Lamont
Halin In Waternish
Dunvegan
[[Survey]]
QUERIES
1. How many Medical Men practice within the Parish of Halin-in-Waternish?
There is only one medical man between the parishes of Bracadale, Duirinish & Halin-in-Waternish embracing a distance of say forty or fifty miles or thereby and about twenty miles in breadth intersected also by several arms of the sea
2. The Names and Addresses of these.
John D. Ferguson
Dunvegan Cottage
by Dunvegan
3. Has the number increased or diminished of late years?
no change of late years
4. Have any left the Parish since you became connected with it? If so, for what reasons?
The former Medical man died about five years ago of dropsy I think about the time that I came to the place.
5. Is there any complaint among the people of inadequacy in the supply of Medical aid?
There is certainly in one way but then like all great privations is so common and so hopeless in a manner that they scarcely complain all as it would be of no use to them.
6. Do you know of any cases of protracted suffering, or of injury by Accident, such as might have been alleviated had proper advice been at hand?
I do not at present remember any particular one but such must necessarily be numerous and frequent besides that the medical man having no salary but from the parochial Board1 he often refuses to attend poor people not paupers as they cannot pay him nor is this surprising in the circumstances if the case as2 the distances are long and attended with trouble and expenses.
7. To what extent is the deficiency of qualified Practitioners made up by the efforts of other parties?
One of the clergymen knows something of medicine and the wife of another administers simple medicines at times and there a few men who can bleed3 in an emergency but all this is nothing to what is required to have the people properly attended to in their way
8. Does your experience enable you to suggest any measure – of general applicability – such as would be likely to relieve to some extent the evils (if they exist) of deficiency in the supply of Medical aid?
Increasing the number of medical men or at least providing such support for those who are already in these parts as will enable them to employ themselves constantly in their profession for it is a fact that while the people require a great deal more medical aid the medical4 men few as they are in the Island are but too often idle because they will not and really cannot give their services for nothing
9. What Heritors5 are resident, either generally or occasionally, in your Parish?
Allan Mac Donald Esqr
of Waternish by Dunvegan
Explanatory notes:
1. Following the Poor Law Amendment (Scotland) Act of 1845 parochial boards were set up in each parish to administer poor relief.
2. Continues into box for query 7.
3. Bleeding, or bloodletting, is the withdrawal of blood from a patient to prevent or cure illness and disease. This was a common medical practice in the 1800s, dating back to antiquity, and was often carried out by unlicensed healers as well as qualified physicians.
4. Continues into box for query 9.
5. A heritor was a landowner, under Scots Law, whose holdings were sizeable enough for them to be liable for the payment of public burdens such as Poor Law rates, road and bridge assessments and the church minister’s stipend.
Remote & Rural Remedies
