Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Sherlock Holmes

  • Joseph Bell and Conan Doyle

    JMS Pearce East Yorks, England   Fig 1. Arthur Conan Doyle. University of Manitoba, Archives Special Collections “…The remarkable individuality and discriminating tact of my old master made a deep and lasting impression on me, though I had not the faintest idea that it would one day lead me to forsake medicine for story writing.”…

  • Medical mysteries and detective doctors: metaphors of medicine

    Roslyn WeaverSydney, Australia Most classical detective novels start out with a community in a state of stable order. Soon a crime (usually a murder) occurs, which the police are unable to clear up. The insoluble crime acts as a destabilizing event, because the system of norms and rules regulating life in the community has proved…

  • Joseph Bell, supreme diagnostician

    The professor produced a vial filled with a bitter amber-colored liquid and asked the medical students to dip a finger in it and taste it, so he could determine how many of them had developed their powers of observation. The students grimaced but did as they were told, and the professor likewise dipped his finger…