460: Dr. Joseph Bell: The Real Sherlock Holmes w/ Lindsey Fitzharris

Throughout nineteenth-century Edinburgh, the surgeon Joseph Bell was known for his extraordinary talent for detection and diagnosis. To the amazement of onlookers at the Royal Infirmary, he could read a patient’s ailments, occupation, and personal habits from a single glance. Though such deductive powers were all quite “elementary” to Bell, they had a profound influence on the medical student and budding writer Arthur Conan Doyle. Soon enough, Bell’s methods helped spark the creation of fiction’s most iconic detective. My guest is New York Times bestselling author and medical historian Lindsey Fitzharris, author of the new book Sleuth-Hound: The Case of the Real Sherlock Holmes. We talk about Bell’s complicated bond with Conan Doyle and a couple of the murder cases Bell investigated alongside his friend, Edinburgh police surgeon Henry Duncan Littlejohn. The two men even took an unofficial interest in the Whitechapel murders. The author's website: https://drlindseyfitzharris.com/ The author on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drlindseyfitzharris The author on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrLindseyFitzharris/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices