On a cold winter's morning in 1878, medical students gathered in a gas-lit operating theatre where a long wooden table stood ready.
asserted
table → gather → theatre
As Joseph Bell, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary's senior surgeon, entered the room, the hubbub died away.
asserted
hubbub → enter → room
To the relief of some of the younger attendees, there would be no surgery today: instead, Bell was about to give a demonstration of the incredible deductive skills which earned him his nickname, 'the demon of diagnosis'.
asserted
which → give → diagnosis
The surgeon took his seat as the patient was ushered in.
asserted
patient → take → seat
Bell pressed the tips of his slender fingers together and narrowed his piercing grey eyes as he carefully studied the clothes, mannerisms and features of the man.
asserted
he → press → man
'Of course, gentlemen,' he said, breaking the silence stifling the room, 'he has been a soldier in a Highland regiment'.
asserted
he → say → regiment
Bell then pointed out confidently that the man's short stature meant he was probably a bandsman, and that the swagger in his walk suggested someone who played the bagpipes.
uncertain
who → point → bagpipes
Once he had shared his assessment, he turned his attention back to the visitor, who – to Bell's surprise – contradicted him, insisting that he was merely a shoemaker with no military background.
asserted
he → share → background
Certain that his assessment was correct, Bell ordered two assistants to take hold of the patient and strip him to the waist.
asserted
Bell → order → waist
Sure enough, a lie was uncovered.
asserted
lie → uncover → ?
Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes in the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes that was released in 1939
Joseph Bell, the genius surgeon who taught Conan Doyle at Edinburgh University, inspired the literary character
Tattooed on the man's chest was a telltale letter D – the man was a deserter.
asserted
man → release → chest
Bell's students were transfixed; none more so than a thickset young man with a bushy moustache.
asserted
none → transfix → moustache
Seated at the front of the audience, as always, Arthur Conan Doyle absorbed the details of every feat performed by the man who, in time, would inspire him to create the beloved fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.
asserted
who → seat → detective
For Bell, every patient was a text to be studied, and he took particular pleasure in inferring facts about a person's life and occupation, even when such knowledge had little immediate clinical value.
asserted
knowledge → study → value
A pinprick-speckled forefinger betrayed a tailor.
asserted
forefinger → betray → tailor
A worn area on the inside of the knee of a man's trousers revealed a cobbler who hammered out leather on a stone resting against his leg.
asserted
who → reveal → leg
'Nearly every handicraft writes its sign-manual on the hands,' he explained.
asserted
he → write → hands
'The scars of the miner differ from those of the quarryman.
asserted
scars → differ → quarryman
Bell's way of thinking about medicine – as a science of reading signs – was what captivated Conan Doyle.
asserted
what → think → Doyle
It showed him that diagnosis and detection required largely identical skills – skills used to supreme effect by Holmes, Bell's fictional counterpart.
asserted
diagnosis → show → Holmes
Since his first appearance in print in late 1887, and the 59 tales of his adventures penned subsequently, Sherlock Holmes has become the most iconic fictional detective of all time.
asserted
Holmes → pen → time
Depicted in film and television more than 250 times – clad in a deerstalker hat and tweed cape, while clutching a pipe and a magnifying glass – Holmes holds the Guinness world record for the most portrayed literary human character in history.
asserted
Holmes → depict → history
To have been the inspiration for that creation might seem flattering.
uncertain
been → seem → creation
But, as we will see, the more popular Holmes became, the more the comparisons began to plague Bell.
asserted
comparisons → see → Bell
And similarly, Conan Doyle would struggle to escape the fictional protagonist who might never have existed were it not for his medical mentor.
uncertain
it → struggle → mentor
Bell, who came from a long line of doctors, was described by colleagues as a distinctive character.
asserted
who → come → character
A 'thin, wiry, dark' man, he had suffered a serious case of the bacterial infection diphtheria, which affects the throat and had the lasting effect of raising the pitch of his voice.
asserted
which → suffer → voice
This characteristic was inherited by Holmes who, according to his friend and confidant Dr Watson, spoke in 'high, somewhat strident tones'.
uncertain
who → inherit → tones
Bell and Holmes also shared a disregard for officers of the law, the former opining that 'the fatal mistake which the ordinary policeman makes' was that 'he gets his theory first and then makes the facts fit it'.
asserted
facts → share → it
Like Holmes, Bell believed that there was nothing worse than a lazy, disorderly mind.
asserted
Bell → believe → mind
Whereas Holmes remained a bachelor, Bell was a family man whose beloved wife Edith died soon after giving birth to a stillborn son in 1874, leaving him with three children under the age of ten.
asserted
wife → remain → ten
He never remarried or fully recovered from the loss of Edith.
asserted
He → remarry → Edith
But, whatever his personal suffering, he cultivated a professional approach that was always ordered and logical.
asserted
that → cultivate → approach
And it is not surprising that this quality appealed to someone from Conan Doyle's chaotic background.
asserted
quality → appeal → background
The eldest of nine children, Arthur Doyle (Conan was one of his middle names) was born in 1859, in a humble dwelling near Edinburgh's city centre.
asserted
Conan → bear → centre
His father Charles was an unsuccessful artist whose alcohol abuse sank the family into debt.
asserted
abuse → sink → debt
The Doyles lived precariously, moving frequently into ever-cheaper lodgings where Charles's desperation to get his hands on drink saw him selling their bed linen, raiding the children's money-boxes and even drinking furniture varnish when he couldn't afford alcohol.
asserted
he → live → alcohol
Charles was eventually placed in a home for 'intemperate gentlemen' and, as poverty tightened its grip on the growing household, Conan Doyle turned to a career in medicine to bring his family some financial stability.
asserted
Doyle → place → stability
He started his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh in 1876.
asserted
He → start → 1876
After he began taking the extracurricular class in diagnosis which Bell taught at the Royal Infirmary, Conan Doyle was chosen to be his outpatient clerk – taking the histories of as many as 80 patients a day before showing them into the large room in which Bell sat in state, making his diagnoses.
asserted
Bell → begin → diagnoses
…and 57 more, not listed.
The Aporia
