The Confabulannotated Sherlock Holmes, Chapter 1.5
Featuring Muppet ailments, dating app hacks and the origins of Radiohead
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Previously on my confabulannotations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mystery, The Hound of the Baskervilles: Holmes systematically dismantled Watson’s deductions.
And now, the story continues…
“As to the latter part, I have no means of checking you,” said I, “but at least it is not difficult to find out a few particulars about the man’s age and professional career.” From my small medical shelf1 I took down the Medical Directory and turned up the name. There were several Mortimers2, but only one who could be our visitor. I read his record aloud.
“Mortimer, James, M.R.C.S., 1882, Grimpen, Dartmoor, Devon. House-surgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at Charing Cross Hospital. Winner of the Jackson prize for Comparative Pathology3, with essay entitled ‘Is Disease a Reversion?’ Corresponding member of the Swedish Pathological Society4. Author of ‘Some Freaks of Atavism5’ (Lancet 1882). ‘Do We Progress?6’ (Journal of Psychology, March, 1883). Medical Officer for the parishes of Grimpen, Thorsley, and High Barrow7.”
“No mention of that local hunt, Watson,” said Holmes with a mischievous smile, “but a country doctor, as you very astutely observed. I think that I am fairly justified in my inferences. As to the adjectives, I said, if I remember right8, amiable, unambitious, and absent-minded. It is my experience that it is only an amiable man in this world who receives testimonials, only an unambitious one who abandons a London career for the country, and only an absent-minded one who leaves his stick and not his visiting-card after waiting an hour in your room9.”
“And the dog?”
“Has been in the habit of carrying this stick behind his master. Being a heavy stick the dog has held it tightly by the middle, and the marks of his teeth are very plainly visible. The dog’s jaw, as shown in the space between these marks, is too broad in my opinion for a terrier and not broad enough for a mastiff10. It may have been—yes, by Jove, it is a curly-haired spaniel.”
A small medical shelf was where space-constrained doctors of the era operated on small people - eg children, Lilliputians and other ‘minikin folk’.
A multi-Mortimered medical directory would be much sought after today.
In 2004, Samuel L Jackson also established a Jackson Prize for Comparative Pathology, albeit one with multiple additional cuss words in the title. He discontinued the prize in 2006.
Despite the name, the Swedish Pathological Society is actually based in Lisbon, Portugal. It specifically studies Swedish diseases such as Valkörningssyndrom (moose crossing syndrome), Sillsaltsöverkänslighet (herring salt hypersensitivity) and Vilsnavårdshands (clumsy wandering hands, as most notably suffered by the Swedish Chef).
‘Some Freaks of Atavism’ was, purely coincidentally, the original name of English rock band Radiohead.
Most scholars believe that ‘Do We Progress?’ is meant to be a ruthless parody of the utilitarian philosophy of John Stuart Mill, who Conan Doyle despised for his inability to tie a cravat. Famously, his wife (Mary Stuart Mill) would regularly witness him fumbling with his neckwear and invariably shake her head in despair as she uttered the withering question ‘do we progress?’.
One of these parishes is wholly made up, but nobody can agree on which one.
Holmes’ famed memory for adjectives was actually accomplished by the simple trick of Conan Doyle turning back to the previous page and seeing what he’d originally typed. Obvious once you know how.
A study by dating site eHarmony in 2018 discovered that ‘amiable, unambitious and absent-minded’ was, surprisingly, the most successful combination of descriptive tags to have in one’s profile, but only for singles who possess a large supply of visiting-cards.
Holmes’ knowledge of the relative broadness of canine jaws may seem remarkable to modern eyes, but in the 1800s, this was considered a fundamental building block of even the poorest and most lice-riddled child’s school curriculum.