The First Scientists

Sherlock Holmes is the most famous fictional detective in the world. It is 127 years since he solved his first case – ‘A Study in Scarlet’ published in the Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887 – yet interest in the great detective has never been higher. But what was the inspiration behind the character, and what made him so popular? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, his creator, modelled Holmes’s lightning powers of observation and deductive reasoning on a real surgeon, Dr Joseph Bell, and added his own knowledge of fledgling forensic techniques, imbuing Sherlock with an unprecedented ability to solve crime in a completely revolutionary way. In doing so, he also changed the real world of police detection and deduction.