0:02

Happy Saturday. Sherlock Holmes

0:04

came up on the show this week. Although

0:06

Grace Thomaston, who was called Mrs Sherlock

0:09

Holmes, really did not seem

0:11

to be too fond of that nickname, even

0:13

though she didn't like it very much. The

0:15

Sherlock Holmes name drops seems like a

0:17

good excuse to pull our episode about

0:20

who the real Sherlock Holmes was. Pull

0:23

that out for Today's Saturday Classic. This

0:25

episode is from previous hosts Sarah

0:27

and Deblina, and it originally came out

0:29

on novemb Welcome

0:35

to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a

0:37

production of I Heart Radio. Hello,

0:45

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Sarah Dowdy

0:48

and I'm Deblina chuker Boardy, and

0:51

today we're going to explore a mystery about

0:53

one of the most iconic mystery solvers

0:56

out there, Sherlock Holmes. Holmes

0:59

being Scott Ash writer Arthur

1:01

Conan Doyle's consulting detective,

1:04

the hawk Face super sleuth who

1:07

has always been able to somehow use his powers

1:09

of deduction to solve mysteries and always

1:12

get the bad guys. He always knows what's going

1:14

on, even if he looks like he's in a

1:16

haze of opium or whatnot.

1:19

I think it was cocaine, but who

1:22

who's counting of Cotton

1:24

Doyle. He wasn't really the first to invent

1:26

the modern detective story, but he did introduce

1:29

this kind of science of detailed

1:31

observation and classification into it,

1:33

which, as we'll see later, has actually

1:36

some influence. It's had some influence

1:38

on the field of forensics. Yeah. But even

1:40

if you haven't read any of his writing,

1:43

you probably know the character of Sherlock

1:45

Holmes. I mean he's in everything. You've

1:47

probably been played Sherlock Holmes as a

1:49

kid like playing detective. But

1:51

I mean there's mentions in other literary

1:54

works, like novels. There's that recent

1:56

movie starring Robert Downey Jr.

1:59

There's even a new BBC television

2:01

series which I think it kind of modernizes

2:04

the whole thing. Yeah, if there's some controversy

2:06

around these modern takes on homes, some of the

2:08

true sherlakeans, the

2:10

fervent Sherlock Holmes fans, don't

2:12

really like the fact that in the new series

2:15

he's using cell phones and text messaging and

2:17

so forth. But you know, these

2:19

are the times, and and this is

2:21

the homes that we have now. But even

2:24

even though Holmes is of such a big part of our consciousness

2:27

and such a big part of pop culture, a lot

2:29

of people probably couldn't tell you if he's real. And

2:31

that's a that's a big question that's out there. And if you go

2:33

on the Internet and you google is Sherlock Holmes

2:36

real, you'll find maybe some different opinions

2:38

about that. Some people think maybe he's based

2:40

on a real person, an actual detective who worked

2:42

for Scotland Yard. Some people think

2:45

that he's based on Connon Doyle himself

2:47

or completely made up, or he could be just completely

2:49

fiction. And in fact he

2:52

is fiction, but he was based on

2:54

an actual person. And that's what we're going to

2:56

talk a little bit about today. But before

2:58

we get into that, let's take committed to take a

3:00

closer look at Doyle and what led him

3:02

to his homes inspiration. Yeah.

3:05

So, Conan Doyle was born in May

3:08

eighteen fifty nine in Edinburgh, Scotland.

3:10

He was the second of a huge family

3:13

ten kids, and his father

3:15

had a lot of trouble in

3:18

business and life. He was a failed architect.

3:20

He was an alcoholic, but fortunately

3:22

Conan Doyle's mother nurtured

3:25

his love of history and storytelling, helped

3:27

him along, you know, helped develop his imagination

3:30

and inspired him to read

3:32

Poe and Jules Byrne and Jonathan

3:34

Swift. So he was a creative

3:37

child, yea. He got an artistic side through

3:39

his mom. He continued

3:41

his education in England. He had

3:44

some schooling there and then he went

3:46

to Austria for about a year or so I

3:48

think, before returning to Scotland to prepare

3:50

for entry into the University

3:52

of Edinburgh's medical school, which is another surprise

3:55

I think for a lot of people that he had a medical

3:57

background. Yes, he had some medical aspiration

4:00

Jen's um and actually ended up getting

4:02

his Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery qualifications

4:05

in eighteen eighty one and an m d in eighteen

4:07

eighty five. He even went on to have

4:09

a sort of a semi successful

4:12

medical career. He I think he practiced for

4:14

at least ten years or so, so he

4:16

didn't have to be spending all his time

4:18

writing detective fiction. Well, I think that

4:20

was what he wanted to be doing. He was writing even while

4:23

he was practicing as a doctor. That's he

4:25

started the Sherlock Holmes series at

4:27

that time started writing stories,

4:29

so it was definitely there

4:31

from the beginning. But it was

4:34

someone that he had met his second year of medical

4:36

school who really inspired this

4:38

literary character that Conan Doyle became so famous

4:40

for, and that was Dr Joseph

4:43

Bell. Yeah. So Kennon Doyle clerked

4:45

for this doctor Bell in the Royal Infirmary

4:48

and he he was just sort of

4:50

his assistant. You know, he interviewed new

4:52

patients before they went in to see the doctor.

4:55

But this is interesting part. Bell

4:58

didn't really need that assistance

5:00

because it seemed like he always kind of

5:02

knew what was going on with his new patients,

5:04

sometimes before he even saw them. Yeah,

5:07

it was kind of freaky,

5:09

for lack of a better word, would call it freaky.

5:12

Conan Doyle would take notes,

5:15

diligently interview these patients

5:17

they'd come in, and his

5:20

mentor, Dr Bell would somehow know

5:22

what was going on. These people were total strangers,

5:25

new patients, he'd never met them before, but

5:27

he would be able to say things like how they

5:29

make their living, where they from,

5:33

even maybe where they'd been that day. And

5:36

Conny was really impressed by

5:38

the skill. And that's why, as anyone

5:40

would be I would be. But it's

5:42

interesting they're not actually friends. And

5:45

you might think, um,

5:47

this impressionable young

5:49

Conan Doyle would try to build

5:51

a relationship with this guy, especially since he

5:53

becomes such a major influence

5:55

on his character later. But yeah,

5:58

they're they're not good buddies. And Bell's

6:00

journals, which he kept from the eighteen sixties

6:02

until his death, uh, there's no mention

6:05

of Doyle, so you know they

6:07

must have He must have not had a huge impression

6:10

on the doctor. He would think. I mean, I

6:12

if I don't write in a journal, but if I were to

6:14

write in a journal, I'd probably write about my best friends

6:16

and the people who are a big influence

6:18

in my life. And he did not appear there.

6:20

That journal was actually on display at

6:23

an exhibit that the Royal College of Surgeons

6:25

in Edinburgh has about Conan

6:28

Doyle and Bell and the real Sherlock Holmes.

6:31

Still it's a permanent display there, and he has that

6:33

in some letters. And so what they

6:35

what we can ascertain from that is that they weren't that

6:37

close. But still

6:40

Conan Doyle must have been inspired by

6:42

this skill, this like guessing

6:44

power that the doctor had. So

6:47

that makes us wonder How did the doctor

6:50

do this? How is he able to determine

6:52

all of these minute details

6:54

about someone's life before he really

6:57

talked to them. Hold that thought. We're

6:59

going to get into that a little more. First,

7:01

a little bit of background on Bell. He

7:03

was born in eighteen thirty seven and he

7:06

was born into really a medical focused

7:08

family. His dad, his uncle's were

7:10

all well known surgeons. They were

7:12

all involved in the medical field, so he kind

7:14

of followed in their footsteps. He was educated

7:17

at the Academy and the University in Edinburgh

7:19

and practiced as a doctor in Scotland. He

7:22

was described as being a thin, wiry guy,

7:25

had a high nose, acute face, penetrating

7:28

gray eyes, and a high discordant voice

7:30

which sounds like somebody else

7:33

I can yep. It's

7:35

true. A lot of these features, like the nose

7:38

especially, are thought to be very homes like,

7:40

and people say that Bell even wore a cloaked

7:43

coat in a deer stalker hat, which which

7:45

are homes trademarks. He even

7:47

has the cost dumn on, he even has the outfit.

7:50

Yeah, and he's he's kind of an interesting

7:52

guy, not just the super focused doctor,

7:55

but he's an amateur poet and a bird

7:57

watcher and an aviad shooter when

7:59

he's not busy with medicine

8:02

and that sort of thing. So he has these interesting

8:05

hobbies, I guess you'd say,

8:15

but his main focus still is medicine, and in

8:17

his profession he did a lot of things with note

8:20

he started Scotland's first training course for nurses,

8:22

which was kind of a big deal, and agreed

8:25

to teach some of the first female medical students

8:27

too, even though that was pretty controversial

8:29

at the time there was a lot of prejudice against these women who

8:31

wanted to study medicine. He was also

8:34

Queen Victoria's a personal physician whenever

8:36

she was in Scotland, which I find very interesting and

8:38

I swear Queen Victoria like makes an appearance

8:40

in almost every podcast she

8:43

works. Yeah,

8:46

she apparently checked out his wards

8:48

and liked what she saw and decided to

8:50

make him her personal doctor. So

8:54

one of the things he was best known for, besides

8:56

all of these accolades and

8:58

positions of prominent was

9:01

for teaching a particular method

9:03

for diagnosing patients. And we've

9:05

alluded to that a little bit before, with his

9:07

experience and being able to identify

9:10

certain things about patients before even interviewing

9:12

them. And basically what this all comes

9:14

down to is that he thought it was important to make a study

9:17

of people, both in order

9:19

to notice the small details that distinguished

9:21

the sick from the healthy, and also

9:24

just to impress patients with your

9:26

knowledge of of them

9:28

so that they'll put their faith in you. Yeah, I mean

9:30

it. It worked for his assistant. You can imagine

9:33

that it would work for his patients

9:35

pretty well too, definitely. And

9:37

so he told his students that a diagnosis

9:39

rested on three things observed carefully,

9:42

did do shrewdly, and confirm

9:45

with evidence. And he put this into practice

9:47

for them too. Yeah, we have an example

9:49

for you that is just kind

9:52

of outrageous. There's a woman walks

9:54

in with a little child, and

9:57

the doctor immediately says, oh,

10:00

I was your walk from this small

10:02

town in Fife? And did you have

10:04

to walk up the ever life row?

10:07

And what do you do with the other one? And are

10:09

you still working at the linoleum factory. Okay,

10:12

that's a lot of really specific personal

10:15

question, very specific stuff.

10:17

And this was all without ever

10:19

having met her before. This was their first encounter,

10:21

and and oh I shouldn't mentioned

10:23

here that this is all sort of our English

10:26

translation from the Scottish

10:29

vernacular at the time, which I didn't think we

10:31

should attempt to pronounce. But

10:33

maybe next time. Maybe next time, we'll give that a

10:35

try. After a few beers. But

10:39

he had never met her before, so

10:41

how did he do this? He quickly

10:43

noticed small things about her. Her

10:46

Fife accent, that's how we recognized

10:49

she was from Fife. The red clay on her

10:51

shoes, which could have only come

10:53

from the botanical gardens area, which

10:55

was near the road that he asked her if she had

10:58

walked up. That's like something that would happen on a

11:00

detective show totally. The

11:02

coach she had slung over her arm was too big

11:04

for the child who was with her, so it must have been

11:06

for another kid, which means

11:08

that she must have left home with two kids. And

11:12

she had dermatitis on her right hand, which was

11:14

peculiar to workers who worked in the specific

11:16

linoleum factory in that

11:18

town where he had ascertained that she was

11:21

from. So all of these really super

11:23

specific minute details.

11:25

He suddenly put that together

11:28

upon meeting her, who

11:30

knows, maybe in the matter of seconds, and

11:33

decided that it was correct.

11:35

And sure enough, she answered each question.

11:37

In this conversation, she was like, yep, I

11:40

left the kid with my sister. Um,

11:42

yeah, it was a good walk. I mean, she answered

11:45

all of these questions in the affirmative and proved

11:47

that he had ascertained correctly.

11:49

Who would have thought he was a wizard

11:52

or something. I don't know. I think

11:54

that would disturb me a little bit if somebody

11:56

was that spot on about everything.

11:59

Yeah, I don't know if I would have been exactly encouraged

12:01

either, But it worked for a lot of people.

12:03

And it turns out that people

12:06

say that he was right most of the time, but

12:09

if he wasn't there were occasions where

12:12

the patient would say, oh,

12:14

that's not correct, and a

12:16

lot of times he would then go further and

12:18

expose that they were lying. Yeah,

12:22

which is kind of I mean, taking

12:24

to the step further, but um,

12:27

not exactly living up

12:29

to the point of putting your patients at ease at

12:31

that point, I guess probably not,

12:33

but at least getting the job

12:35

done, which is getting to the heart of the problem.

12:38

His goal was diagnosing, so he got

12:40

to the truth one way or another most of the time.

12:43

Yeah, And I mean he recognized that this was a

12:45

valuable skill for his profession, and so

12:47

he wanted to train his students

12:49

to have the same abilities

12:51

and taught them to look for those

12:54

really specific details

12:56

that gave someone away, you know, like everything

12:59

from the way person walked, for

13:02

instance, a sailor would walk differently from

13:04

a soldier. Um look at

13:06

their hands, which hands are not

13:08

only give you big clues about

13:10

someone's age, but maybe even a person's

13:13

profession. And he even

13:15

went so far as to say that you could tell the

13:17

difference between different types of callouses

13:20

on the hands tell what somebody

13:22

did based on that. Yeah, Like he

13:24

he asserted that a mason would

13:27

have different types of callouses than say a carpenter

13:30

or something, and that he could by observing

13:32

you could guess which profession a

13:35

person was in. And then also some more obvious

13:37

things too, like ornaments and tattoos and

13:39

clothing and posture and just

13:42

a person's overall demeanor, things

13:44

that might give away where they're from, where they're

13:46

going, what's going on where they've traveled,

13:49

all those kind of things. And

13:51

he also had them closely studies subjects

13:53

that could help them make certain

13:55

distinctions when they were coming up with diagnoses,

13:58

such as diverse odors

14:00

of poisons, even perfumes.

14:03

They had to sort of sample

14:05

all these things and learn I guess the technical

14:07

aspect of it too, not just looking at okay,

14:10

what does this person have on them? What

14:12

markings can I see? But also

14:15

can I recognize a certain sense, certain

14:17

tastes, certain sites. Yeah,

14:19

and the way he did that was maybe

14:22

sometimes a little questionable

14:25

yep. According to UH

14:28

column two tho nine column and The Forensic

14:30

Examiner, written by a Dr. Catherine Ramslin,

14:33

she describes this funny kind of training

14:35

exercise or trick that Bell

14:37

used with his students when teaching them his

14:39

method. Basically, he

14:42

had this gross container of amber

14:44

colored fluid, which he told them

14:46

up front was disgusting,

14:49

bitter tasting. But he told

14:51

them that it was a potent drug, and

14:53

since they needed to learn how various

14:55

substances taste and smell, they should

14:58

follow his example and taste it right now. So

15:01

he stuck a finger in it,

15:03

licks the finger, and

15:06

then they all have to do the same, and

15:10

sure enough pass it around. He's correct,

15:12

it's bitter tasting. They all agree with everyone's

15:15

grossed out. And then

15:17

at the end, though Bell tells him that they've

15:19

missed the most important part the

15:22

finger that he dipped into the liquid wasn't

15:24

the same one that he tasted, so

15:27

he didn't actually taste this disgusting stuff

15:29

at all. Yeah, so they hadn't really

15:31

observed him at all. They had missed

15:34

the most important thing, even though they had been

15:36

looking straight at them. So this was a key

15:38

lesson in his method that he was trying to

15:40

teach a magician, or he could have.

15:51

So Bell didn't just use this method for

15:53

teaching and to help his patients.

15:55

He also used it to help solve crimes

15:58

in a homes esque sort of way.

16:00

So there's another little connection that we can see

16:02

there. He actually admitted to a reporter

16:04

in the eighteen nineties that he had been involved

16:07

for about twenty years two

16:09

decades or so, that he had been

16:11

working on criminal cases for the crown,

16:14

but he wouldn't divulge any details about this. But

16:17

RMS Land, that author we

16:19

mentioned earlier, asserted

16:21

that he was involved in a few really

16:23

big cases, and one of them was the case

16:26

of Elizabeth Chantrelle. She was this

16:28

young woman who was murdered by her no

16:30

good husband, Eugene Chantrelle

16:33

for her insurance money, and

16:35

he tried to make it seem like it was

16:37

an accidental death, that she had been killed

16:40

by coal gas poisoning, but

16:42

Bell worked with a toxicologist

16:44

from the university named Sir Henry little

16:46

John and helped prove that

16:49

Chantrell had actually been poisoned.

16:51

She hadn't been poisoned by the gas. She had

16:53

been poisoned by something else

16:55

entirely, and her husband had staged

16:59

the room and stay the murder

17:01

to make it look like she had died from the gas

17:03

leak. Yeah. I mean, this guy didn't do any

17:05

favors. He had pretty much made

17:07

it clear that he wanted

17:10

to kill his wife because he had insured

17:12

her life around this time, and

17:15

then sure enough later when she fell ill,

17:18

he tried to blame it on this gas leak, but

17:20

they found out that it was narcotic

17:23

poisoning. And I think he was also

17:25

involved in the Jack the Ripper case. You

17:27

may have heard of it. You may have heard of this

17:29

exciting case. Several sources

17:32

more than just Ramslin, they connect Bell to this

17:34

case, but there's no real record that reveals

17:38

who he suspected, which one of the suspects

17:41

he thought was the real killer involved here.

17:43

Yeah, and he worked with Little John the toxicologist

17:46

again on this one, studied the case

17:49

and did handwriting analysis of the

17:51

Ripper letters. And this

17:53

part is really sad. But the two men prepared

17:56

reports on it and sent them to Scotland

17:58

Yard. But apparently the reports

18:00

don't exist anymore. Yeah, it would

18:03

be nice to know what his guess was. I think so, I

18:05

mean, he seems like a pretty reliable

18:07

source. He'd be as good

18:09

as anything we have for the Ripper murders, definitely.

18:13

But he believed that this method, when used

18:15

in solving crimes, was superior

18:17

to the tunnel vision of ordinary cops. Um.

18:20

What that means, basically is that ordinary

18:23

policeman, this is Bell's

18:25

opinion, when they come up with the theory, they

18:28

come up with the theory first, and then

18:30

they try to find the facts to support that. He

18:33

believed in getting the facts first and then making

18:36

observations and deductions to come

18:38

up with an ultimate hypothesis until it

18:40

makes sense, until it all makes sense. And he did

18:42

think that you could come up with a hypothesis

18:44

and use that as a guide, but he believed that

18:47

you should be flexible and accept

18:50

new facts that come along and use that to kind of revise

18:52

it along the way, Yeah, don't become a

18:54

slave to your hypothesis.

18:57

So maybe indirectly

19:00

through holmes character. Bell's approach

19:03

to solving crimes has been a big influence

19:05

in kind of combining forensic

19:07

science and crime investigation, which we see a lot

19:09

of today. It's kind of the norm, but he

19:12

was a bit of an influence in that. One

19:14

main example of this is Edmund Lockard.

19:17

Sherlock Holmes was one of his big heroes

19:19

and Lockard established the world's first

19:21

private crime lab in nineteen ten,

19:24

which was just a year before

19:26

Bell died. So clearly

19:28

very influenced indirectly by

19:31

Bell's work. Yep.

19:33

Still today there's the Joseph Bell Center

19:35

for Forensic Statistics and Legal Reasoning

19:38

in Edinburgh, which was established in two

19:40

thousand one, and there they still

19:42

honor and use Bell's methods

19:44

and approach to teaching forensics,

19:47

statistics, law, artificial

19:49

intelligence, and ontological studies.

19:52

Yeah, so useful stuff today.

19:54

But after you hear a little bit about

19:56

this guy, Joseph Bell, it seems

19:59

like the connection to Sherlock Holmes

20:01

is very obvious. I mean, it's

20:03

easy to see how he would have led

20:06

to his character's creation, but

20:09

it's We're not just like finding

20:11

convenient comparisons and making

20:13

it all match up. There's

20:15

more than that. There's actual evidence

20:18

behind it. I think Bell would be proud. Bell

20:20

would definitely approve there's some hard evidence

20:22

to back it up. In a letter to

20:24

Bell on May fourth, which

20:28

is still owned by Bell's ascendants, Conan

20:30

Doyle said this quote,

20:33

it is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock

20:35

Holmes. And though in the stories

20:38

I have the advantage of being able to place

20:40

the detective and all sorts of dramatic positions,

20:43

I do not think that his analytical work is in the

20:45

least an exaggeration of similar effects

20:47

which I have seen you produce in the Outpatient Ward.

20:50

Yeah, so that pretty much steals

20:52

it. That's it. And Bell

20:55

was really humble about this. You would think

20:57

maybe if you have kind of

21:00

Doyle right to you and say you are Sherlock Holmes,

21:02

you might brag about that a little bit.

21:04

I would think it was pretty cool. I would think it was

21:06

definitely cool. But he basically said

21:09

later that Conan Doyle had

21:11

made a bigger deal out of out

21:13

of what there was, and that Sherlock

21:16

Holmes was really Conan

21:18

Doyle. You know it was. His genius

21:20

was a result of Conan Doyle's own talents

21:23

and his own training. And he

21:25

even said, quote, you yourself

21:27

are Sherlock Holmes and you well know

21:29

it. So here he is

21:31

just kind of denying this major influence

21:35

and maybe he just didn't want the attention. He

21:37

was happy enough with his with his own

21:40

accolades, accomplishments. Yea,

21:43

And what he said isn't entirely

21:45

untrue either. Conan

21:47

Doyle does seem to have added a little bit of himself

21:49

to holmes character, as a lot

21:51

of writers do in their works. His

21:54

eccentric personality, Holmes's eccentric

21:56

personality that is, for example, many

21:58

people often attribute to

22:00

the author. Bill was actually kind of a

22:03

nice, charming guy, right. He was known

22:05

to be really carrying, funny, compassionate,

22:08

whereas conn and

22:10

Doyle I think was more prone to having

22:13

maybe what was closer not manic depression

22:16

as Holmes did Holmes character did, but maybe

22:18

something closer to that type

22:21

of personality. Prickly, you wouldn't want

22:23

him to be your personal doctor, maybe

22:25

if you were Queen Victoria, definitely,

22:27

But I think the bell fit the Bill a

22:29

little better. Um. They

22:31

we also see different influences from

22:34

other people who lived in Edinburgh at the time

22:36

and that during that same period who show

22:38

up as part of Holmes character, such as Sir

22:41

Robert Christensen, who was

22:43

another professor at the university and he is

22:45

said to have influenced holmes

22:47

knowledge of poisons. So it's a mix,

22:50

yeah, as as most characters are. I'd

22:52

say yeah, but I mean

22:54

still in terms of that basic

22:57

method and approach, Bell

23:00

definitely inspired Homes and Holmes

23:03

still has a lot of influence on characters

23:05

today.

23:11

Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday.

23:14

Since this episode is out of the archive, if

23:16

you heard an email address or Facebook U r L

23:18

or something similar over the course of the show that

23:21

could be obsolete now. Our current

23:23

email address is History Podcast

23:26

at i heart radio dot

23:28

com. Our old health stuff works email

23:30

address no longer works, and

23:32

you can find us all over social media at

23:34

missed in History and you can subscribe

23:37

to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google

23:39

Podcasts, the I heart Radio app, and

23:41

wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuff

23:47

you Missed in History Class is a production of I heart

23:49

Radio. For more podcasts from I

23:52

heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,

23:54

Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen

23:56

to your favorite shows.