Sherlock Holmes Science April 1988

Trevor Leggett was head of the Japanese Department of the BBC.

This is one of his broadcasts to Japan

Zubari for April 1988

Hello listeners!

It is always interesting when experts disagree, isn’t it? When they disagree in public, it is even more interesting. Usually, of course, we public do not understand what the experts disagree about. But occasionally they talk about something which we know.

Recently two scientists disagreed on – the scientific knowledge of Sherlock Holmes! In the books, he is presented as a genius in the use of science in the detection of crime.

The head of one of the big Police Laboratories wrote a letter to the press recently, in which he said that the ‘discoveries’ of Sherlock Holmes – as reported in the novels – were just ‘ridiculous’. (Of course, this was a good-humoured letter.)

But this letter was answered in a couple of days by the head of the main London Police Laboratory, who said that, on the contrary, Sherlock Holmes (or rather, Conan Doyle, the author of the stories) had been a near-genius. He points out that Holmes is reported as having discovered ‘a re-agent for haemoglobin’; we have discovered one, and use it today. Conan Doyle’s stories were the first to suggest matching typewriting, and he also set out many of the criteria for hand-writing recognition which are used today.

I remember a similar disagreement some years ago, when an expert said that Dickens’ descriptions of illness were ‘purely fantastic’.  The President of the Medical Association wrote to say that Dickens was the first man in medical history who had noticed a symptom where the pupils do not change even under a strong light.

When we read such correspondence, we feel almost as if we were at a boxing fight – or perhaps, a sumo match, where there are just two pushes and the fight ends.

© Trevor Leggett