The Real Sherlock Holmes?
Author: Chris Haycock


The Real Sherlock Holmes?
"In teaching the treatment of disease and accident, all
careful teachers have first to show the student how to
recognise accurately the case. The recognition depends in
great measure on the accurate and rapid appreciation of
small points in which the diseased differs from the healthy
state. In fact, the student must be taught to observe. To
interest him in this kind of work we teachers find it
useful to show the student how much a trained use of the
observation can discover in ordinary matters, such as the
previous history, nationality, and occupation of a patient."

The above quote is by Dr Joseph Bell (1837-1911), who was a
professor of clinical surgery at Edinburh University. He
came from a distingushed medical family. His great
grandfather being Benjamin Bell, also a noted forensic
surgeon. Another relative was Charles Bell, who described
(and had named after him) the condition known as Bells'
Palsey.  Whenever Queen Victoria was in Scotland, Bell was
her personal surgeon, and later was honorary surgeon to
Edward VII. He was well known and respected before Arthur
Conan Doyle met him, having published a number of medical
textbooks, and prolific journal articles, and for 23 years
he was editor of the Edinburgh Medical Journal.

He was a popular lecturer at the university, his lectures
invariably attended to capacity. It was whist studying
medicine at Edinburgh in 1877 that Arthur Conan Doyle first
met Bell, and was immediately impressed.  Doyle proved to
be a first rate student, and Bell in turn was equally
complimentary, writing of Doyle "Dr. Conan Doyle's
education as a student of medicine taught him how to
observe, and his practice has been a splendid training for
a man such as he is, gifted with eyes, memory, and
imagination. Eyes and ears which can see and hear, memory
to record at once and recall at pleasure the impressions of
the senses, and imagination capable of weaving a theory or
piecing together a broken chain or unravelling a tangled
clue. Such are the implements of his trade to a successful
diagnostician." He went on to add that Doyle's gift as a
natural story teller in combination with these attributes
only made it a matter of choice as to wether he wrote
detective stories, or saved his strength for a great
historical romance.

By the end of Conan Doyle's second year at the University
Bell selected him to be his clerk and assistant at the
Royal Infirmary's open clinic. In this position Conan Doyle
often heard Bell make "amazing" deductions whilst leading
students on his rounds. On one occasion he witnessed Bell
telling students that a new patient was a recently
discharged non-commisioned officer who had been serving in
a Highland regiment stationed in Barbados. Going on to
explain "You see gentlemen, the man was a respectful man
but did not remove his hat. They do not in the army, but he
would have learned civilian ways had he been long
discharged. He has an air of authority and is obviously
Scottish. As to Barbados, his complaint is elephantiasis,
which is West Indian, and not British."

On another occasion, also witnessed by Doyle, a mans
address, combined with the callused ball of his thumb
indicated to Bell that the man was a sailmaker. The
reasoning being that he lived on a street near the docks,
and sail makers typically have calloused thumbs from
stitching the heavy canvas sails.

Many other incidents of similar nature were witnessed by
Doyle and were often used in Sherlock Holmes stories later.
In A Study In Scarlet, Holmes explains to Watson why he
concludes that a man had recently been in Afghanistan.
"Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of
a military man. Clearly an army doctor then. He has just
come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is
not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair.
He has undergone hardship and sickness as his haggard face
says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in
a stiff an unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an
English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm
wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan."

It is obvious that Conan Doyle was much influenced by the
charismatic Bell, and based his famous detective Sherlock
Holmes largely upon him. Although the character first
created by Edgar Allan Poe in "The Murders In The Rue
Morgue", that is Auguste C. Dupin, undoubtedly also was
incorporated into the persona, It is my (and that of others
far more knowledgable than I) opinion that Dr. Joseph Bell
was in fact the real Sherlock Holmes.


About the Author:

Chris Haycock is an information publisher, one of whose
many hobbies includes crime fiction. Early detective
fiction in particular. A particular favourite is Sherlock
Holmes. If you would like to know more about Sherlock
Holmes and an excellent offer, why not go now to
http://www.sherlockandwatson.coma >