SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE ORIGINAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1157, 11 October 1913, Page 4

SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE ORIGINAL.

STORIES OF DR, JOSEPH BELL. Dr Joseph Bell, the great Edinburgh physician, who was the original of Conan Doyle’s famous character, Sherlock Holmes, maintained that any good doctor ought to be able to tell by looking at a patient a great deal of what was the matter with him or her. TRIFLES THAT THU,. He trained his medical students (including Dr Conan Doyle) to cultivate first of all their powers of observation, for he said the trained observer will remark many ant details which would be entirely lost to the man who has not learned to use his eyes. One can often tell a man’s nationality by his physiognomy, as well as by his accent, whilst nearly every handicraft writes its sign manual upon the hands. Much can be learned also from a walk. It is the little peculiarities, in themselves trifles, which differentiate men.

In a book about Dr Bell, which she has just published, Mrs Jessie Saxby gives an appreciation of his many good qualities, relating instances of his remarkable powers of deduction. THE DOCTOR GUESSED RIGHT. On one occasion a man walked into the room in which Dr Bell was instructing a class of students to consult the famous physician. In dwelling upon the features of his case, the doctor said to the assembled students: — “Of course you will remark, gentlemen, that the patient has been a soldier in a Highland regiment, and probably a bandsman.” He pointed cut how be had arrived at this conclusion. The man had a military walk, and the fact that he was short suggested that if he had been a soldier it was probably a bandsman. But the man denied ever having been in the army. Dr Bell, however was certain that he was right in his deductions, and so be proved to be, for a litltle “D” was discovered branded on the patient’s chest. In former times deserters from the army were branded in this way. A BRAVE ACTION. Dr Bell was one of the kindest men imaginable. As Mrs Saxby says, “His gift as an amateur detective were never used tor bringing the wrongdoer to justice; on the contrary, his talents in that line were used to screen and help the culprit to retrieve.” His whole mission in life was to cure suffering, mental as well as physical. In his young days he saved a child who would have died of diphtheria by sucking the poisonous stuff from the little patient’s throat. He caught diphtheria as a result of this heroic action, and suffered from throat weakness to the end of his days. In later years Queen Victoria named Dr Bell’s ward in the Edinburgh Infirmary the “Victoria Ward,” in recognition of his heroic action so quietly done.