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Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) made the mistake of setting up his medical practice in the Plymouth suburb of Southsea, where there were very few patients. To pass the time, he began to write mysteries, and when he thought about what kind of character traits to give his detective, Sherlock Holmes, what came to mind was his extraordinary teacher at medical school, Dr. Joseph Bell.
Dr. Bell (1837-1911) taught at the University of Edinburgh, and was legendary for noticing tiny but telling details and using them to identify a patient's illness--along with the patient's place of birth and what he did for a living. "Cobbler, I see, " he would say, pointing to a peculiar pattern of wear on a patient's trousers. "He had the most uncanny gift for drawing large inferences from small observations," Doyle later said, "and what he applied to the diagnosis of disease I applied to the diagnosis of crime."
Dr. Bell applied his deductive skills to crime as well, helping the police solve many cases. His most famous was the case of the notorious murderer Jack the Ripper. While very little is known about his participation, it is reported that Dr. Bell studied the case evidence and gave Scotland Yard the name of a suspect. Although the name Dr. Bell provided was never made public, the murders mysteriously stopped a week later.
After it became known that Dr. Bell was the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, Bell was mobbed by reporters and fans. All the attention bothered him at times, but on the whole he was happy to be associated with the detective, even sending Doyle suggestions for Sherlock Holmes stories.
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