It is to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes, wrote Arthur Conan Doyle to his former professor and mentor, Dr. Joseph Bell, in 1892. A distinguished physician and professor of medicine at Edinburgh University, and a forensic expert for the British Crown, Joseph Bell was well known for his remarkable powers of observation and deduction. In what would become true Sherlockian fashion, he had the ability to deduce facts about his patients from otherwise unremarkable details. In one instance recounted by Arthur Conan Doyle himself - ...
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It is to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes, wrote Arthur Conan Doyle to his former professor and mentor, Dr. Joseph Bell, in 1892. A distinguished physician and professor of medicine at Edinburgh University, and a forensic expert for the British Crown, Joseph Bell was well known for his remarkable powers of observation and deduction. In what would become true Sherlockian fashion, he had the ability to deduce facts about his patients from otherwise unremarkable details. In one instance recounted by Arthur Conan Doyle himself - and similar to Sherlock Holmes' own observations in ""The Greek Interpreter"" - Bell took little time to determine that one of his patients had recently served in the army, a non-commissioned officer discharged from his Highland regiment stationed in Barbados: ""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 he is obviously Scottish. As to Barbados, his complaint is elephantitis, which is West Indian and not British."" Based on extensive research into the life of Bell and including tantalizing accounts of the connections between Bell and Conan Doyle, this biography is required reading for anyone interested in Victorian medicine, in the history of detective fiction, and in Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Joseph Bell's relationship to Arthur Conan Doyle was the subject of the television production ""Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes"", originally aired in the United Kingdom in 2000 and on BBC America.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good, Good++ 8VO, B/W Illus, Hardcover. Hardcover in dust jacket. Clean pale yellow cloth boards with title in black on spine. Upper boards lightly bumped. Text pages are clean. Illustrated dust jacket shows edge wear and rubbing. Short tears, light soil. Looks good in new protective mylar. Always carefully wrapped and shipped in cardboard boxes to protect your purchase.