Abstract
AN occasional correspondent contributes an amusing article to The Lancet of December 26 entitled “Was Sherlock Holmes a Drug Addict?”, as his friend Dr. Watson represented him as being. The correspondent's reply is in the negative on the following grounds. In the first place, Holmes was a man of immense mental resource and initiative, being an expert chemist, an accomplished linguist, an assiduous student of Black Letter texts, a capable performer on the violin, a composer and an authority on medieval music. Nor was he of the stuff of which cocaine addicts are made, who are sociable, lacking in mental capacity and need the stimulus of a drug to rouse their interest in life. The continued use of cocaine leads to physical, mental and moral degeneration. Holmes, on the other hand, was the most unsociable of men and showed no deterioration in his mental powers, physical activity or character. The correspondent suggests that Holmes was playing a trick on Watson when he pretended to give himself an injection of cocaine and showed an arm dotted and scarred with numerous puncture marks.
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Was Sherlock Holmes a Drug Addict?. Nature 139, 21 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139021c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139021c0