Passage 3

Dr. Joseph Bell, the eminent surgeon and medical instructor, had all people wide-eyed with his deductive acrobatics.

“A patient walked into the room where I was instructing the students, and his case seemed to be a very simple one. I was talking about what was wrong with him. ‘He has been a soldier in a Highland regiment, and probably a bandsman.’ I pointed out the swagger in his walk, suggestive of the Highland piper; while his shortness told me that if he had been a soldier, it was probably as a bandsman. But the man insisted he was nothing but a shoemaker and had never been in the army in his life. This was rather a floorer, but being absolutely certain, I told two of the strongest clerks to remove the man to a side room and strip him. Under his left breast I instantly detected a little blue D branded on his skin. He was an army deserter. That was how they used to mark them in the Crimean days. He confessed having played in the band of a Highland regiment in the war against the Russians.”

Of all the Edinburgh undergraduates, it was Conan Doyle who was the most deeply impressed by his incredible mentor. One time when the young Doyle was working as Dr. Bell’s assistant, a patient entered and sat down. “Did you like your walk over the golf links today, as you came in from the south of the town?” inquired Dr. Bell. The patient replied: “Why, yes, did Your Honor see me?” Dr. Bell had not seen him.

“Conan Doyle could not understand how I knew,” Dr. Bell related later, “but on a showery day such as that had been, the reddish clay at bare parts of the golf links adheres to the boot, and a tiny part is bound to remain. There is no such clay anywhere else.”

Thus, Conan Doyle’s five years as a struggling medical student—and his months serving his uncanny Scotch instructor—gave him both the idea for the character and much of the material that helped make him a world-famous author. But actually, when he graduated from Edinburgh University in 1881, Doyle intended to be a doctor. He nailed up his oculist’s shingle in a suburb of Portsmouth and waited for patients. Six years later he was still waiting. Lacking a practice, desperate for any kind of income, Doyle turned to writing. He decided to try a detective story. And for it he wanted a new kind of detective. Perhaps he looked at the photograph of Dr. Bell which he kept on the mantelpiece of his study. At any rate, he thought of Bell, and, thinking of him, hit upon his detective.

He called him Sherlock Holmes after an English cricketer and Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Dr. Bell decided that the patient (in the 2nd paragraph) was a soldier mainly because of ________.

What did Conan Doyle learn in Edinburgh University?

What is true about Conan Doyle?

Which contributed to Conan Dolye’s finally becoming a famous author?

Which of the following is NOT true about Dr. Bell and his deductive ability?