It's worth starting with something encouraging. Sherlock Holmes' abilities are absolutely real. And in general, the legendary character was copied by Conan Doyle from a living person - professor at the University of Edinburgh Joseph Bell. He was widely known for his ability to guess a person's character, background and profession from the smallest details.

On the other hand, the existence of one real outstanding person does not guarantee success for everyone who tries to repeat his achievements. Mastering abilities comparable to Holmes's is incredibly difficult. In a different scenario, Scotland Yard wouldn't be running around Baker Street for clues, right?

What he does is real. But what is he doing?

He acts, demonstrates his arrogance, pride and... remarkable intelligence. All this is justified by the ease with which he solves crimes. But how does he do it?

Sherlock Holmes's main weapon is the deductive method. Logic backed by intense attention to detail and outstanding intelligence.

To this day there is debate as to whether Holmes uses deduction or induction. But most likely the truth is somewhere in the middle. Sherlock Holmes accumulates his reasoning, experience, clues to the most complicated cases, systematizes them, collecting them into a common base, which he then successfully uses, using both deduction and induction. He does it brilliantly.

Most critics and researchers are inclined to believe that Conan Doyle made no mistakes and Holmes actually uses the deductive method. For simplicity of presentation, further we will talk about it.

What does the mind of Sherlock Holmes do?

Deductive method

This is the detective's main weapon, which, however, would not work without a number of additional components.

Attention

Sherlock Holmes captures even the smallest details. If not for this skill, he simply would not have material for reasoning, evidence and leads.

Knowledge base

The detective himself said it best:

All crimes show great generic similarity. They (Scotland Yard agents) introduce me to the circumstances of a particular case. Knowing the details of a thousand cases, it would be strange not to solve the thousand and one.

The palaces of the mind

This is his excellent memory. This is the repository that he turns to almost every time he is looking for a solution to a new riddle. This is the knowledge, circumstances and facts accumulated by Holmes, a significant part of which cannot be obtained anywhere else.

Constant analysis

Sherlock Holmes analyzes, reflects, asks questions and answers them. Often he even resorts to double analysis, it is not in vain that the detective constantly acts together with his partner Dr. Watson.

How to learn it

Pay attention to the little things

Bring your ability to pay attention to details to automaticity. In the end, only the details matter. They are the material for your reasoning and conclusions, they are the keys to unraveling and solving the problem. Learn to look. Look so as to see.

Develop your memory

This is the only way you can learn to analyze, derive your own statistics and form patterns. It will only save you in difficult times when you have no other sources of information. It is memory that will help you correctly analyze all the little things that captured your attention when you hit the trail.

Learn to formulate

Document your guesses and conclusions, draw up a “dossier” on passers-by, write verbal portraits, build harmonious and clear logical chains. This way you will not only gradually master Sherlock’s method, but also make your thinking clearer and clearer.

Go deeper into the area

One could say “broaden your horizons,” but Holmes would not approve of this lengthy formulation. Try to deepen your knowledge in your chosen field, and avoid useless knowledge. Try to grow in depth, not in breadth, no matter how absurd it may sound.

Concentrate

Above all, Holmes is a genius of concentration. He knows how to isolate himself from the world around him when he is busy with work, and does not allow distractions to tear him away from what is important. He should not be distracted by Mrs. Hudson's chatter or the explosion in the neighboring house on Baker Street. Only high level concentration will allow you to think soberly and logically. This required condition mastering the method of deduction.

Learn body language

A source of information that many people forget about. Holmes never neglects him. He analyzes a person’s movements, how he behaves and gestures, pays attention to facial expressions and fine motor skills. Sometimes a person gives away his hidden intentions or involuntarily signals his own lies. Use these tips.

Develop your intuition

It was intuition that often suggested famous detective the right decision. Hordes of charlatans have pretty much tarnished the reputation of the sixth sense, but this does not mean that it should be neglected. Understand your intuition, learn to trust it and develop it.

Take notes

And of different kinds. It makes sense to keep a diary and write down what happened to you during the day. This is how you analyze everything that you have learned and noticed, summarize and draw a conclusion. The brain is actively working during such an analysis. You can keep field notes where you note your observations of the world around you and the people around you. This will help systematize observations and derive patterns. For some, a blog or an electronic diary is more suitable - everything is individual.

Ask questions

The more questions you ask, the better. Be critical of what is happening, look for reasons and explanations, sources of influence and impact. Build logical chains and cause-and-effect relationships. The ability to ask questions will gradually give rise to the skill of finding answers.

Solve problems and puzzles

Anything: from ordinary problems from school textbooks to challenging puzzles on logic and non-standard thinking. These exercises will force your brain to work, look for solutions and answers. Just what you need to develop deductive thinking.

Create puzzles

Have you already learned how to quickly solve them? Try making your own. The task itself is unusual, so it won’t be easy. But the result is worth it.

Read. More. Better

It won't be what you read that matters, but how you do it. To develop deductive reasoning, you need to analyze what you read and pay attention to details. Compare information from different sources and draw parallels. Include the information received in the context of the knowledge you already have and expand your file cabinet.

Listen more, talk less

Holmes could not have unraveled cases so easily if he had not listened to every word of his client. Sometimes one word decides whether a case will hang in the air or be unraveled, whether the legendary detective will be interested in it or not. Just remember the huge hound in “The Hound of the Baskervilles” and one word that changed the girl’s life in the second episode of the fourth season of the BBC series.

Love what you do

Only strong interest and great desire will help you reach the end. This is the only way you will not deviate from the path of constant difficulties and seemingly insoluble tasks. If Holmes had not loved his work, he would not have become a legend.

Practice

I saved the most important point for the finale. Practice is the key to mastering deductive reasoning. The key to the Holmes method. Practice anytime, anywhere. Even if at first you are not sure of the correctness of your judgments. Even if at first you will be more like Dr. Watson in your conclusions. Look at people on the subway, on the way to work, take a closer look at those around you at train stations and airports. Only a skill brought to automatism will become truly working.

Deductive thinking can be useful anywhere, and the talents of a legendary detective with constant practice will remain with you for life. Holmes' method is interesting in itself and produces surprising results. So why not try to master it?

The story of our famous series about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson began with a script. Yuli Dunsky and Valery Frid once came to Lenfilm, the creative association for television films, and placed a script on the table of editor-in-chief Alla Borisova that no one had ordered. It was their personal initiative to film two early works Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Study in Scarlet" and "The Speckled Band"

Igor Maslennikov, who was not a big fan of detective literature, liked this script. I liked it because it had one important feature. It was called "Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson." The main mistake of the two hundred films based on the stories about Sherlock Holmes all over the world is that only Holmes appears in them all. Despite the fact that all the stories about Holmes are supposedly written by Watson, in the films he undeservedly ends up behind the scenes. At the same time, the pairing of characters disappears. Maslennikov noticed that really little attention was paid to Watson. What he liked about the script by Dunsky and Fried was how amazingly accurately and ironically the relationship between two people was depicted. Watson became interesting and alive. That is why he decided to take on the production.

The most difficult stage was approving the performers for the main roles. From the very beginning, Maslennikov wanted to cast Vasily Livanov as Holmes, with whom he worked on his previous film “Yaroslavna - Queen of France,” where Vasily Borisovich played the knight Benedictus.

Photo tests of Vasily Livanov for the role of Holmes

But the choice had to be defended - they didn’t even want to hear about Livanov and strongly recommended looking for another actor, for example Oleg Yankovsky, Sergei Yursky, Alexander Kaidanovsky

Photo test of Alexander Kaidanovsky for the role of Holmes

But Conan Doyle’s contemporary, the first illustrator of stories about Sherlock Holmes, Sidney Edward Paget, came to Maslennikov’s aid. Livanov’s photographic proof is compared with a drawing from the beginning of the 20th century and doubts disappear

Photography will also play a role in the fate of Dr. Watson, but in a different way. The fact is that for 100 years of the existence of this character, no one thought about what he looks like. So, in the London Museum, Watson is very different: fat, thin, with a mustache, with a beard, with glasses, without glasses, red-haired, black, bald, that is, none. He's kind of elusive. When the director suggested Vitaly Solomin for his role, they almost started laughing at him - no one saw an Englishman in Solomin. How will he play an Englishman with such a Russian snub-nosed face? Other actors were invited to take part in the audition photo: Oleg Basilashvili, Alexander Kalyagin, Yuri Bogatyrev, Leonid Kuravlev. But then Maslennikov, in the acting department of Lenfilm, discovered a photograph of Vitaly Solomin with an English army mustache pasted on. The controversy immediately dried up. Solomin's resemblance to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself amazed everyone

At these photo tests in 1979, Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin will meet for the first time. Like their characters, they became good friends and maintained this friendship for life. Vasily Livanov in one of his interviews called this one of the components of the film’s success. It is impossible to play real friendship, he said. For the viewer to believe in her, the partners actually had to be friends

The Livanovs and Solomins at the dacha drinking tea, 1982 (photo by V. Zavyalov)

For Mrs. Hudson, Maslennikov was looking for an intelligent elderly woman who could be anyone - English, French, Dutch, Russian. Various actresses auditioned: Evgenia Khanaeva, Lyubov Dobrzhanskaya. But it was in Rina Zelenaya, who at that time was almost 80 years old, that he saw what he was looking for. They didn’t want to approve her for the role either. They said that she was already at such an age that she could not withstand the stress: “How are we going to transport her from Moscow to Leningrad?” She joked about it herself. Her name was actually not Rina, but Ekaterina Vasilievna. Once Maslennikov turned to her: “Can I call you Ekaterina Vasilievna?” “What are you talking about,” came the answer, “it’s better to call me Ruina Vasilievna.” In the film, Mrs. Hudson has only a few lines, but the actress emphasized every line. It was wonderfully done. When the first film was released, Maslennikov told Rina Vasilievna: “We are doing well. The audience likes you. Let’s increase your role, add more, add...” She replied: “No, no, no! I’ve never played furniture in my life, and I I like it"

Rina Zelenaya on the set of the film "Bloody Inscription", 1979 (from the archive of V. Livanov)

According to the script of the film "Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson", the role of Inspector Lestrade was comical and director Igor Maslennikov was faced with the task of finding a comical, funny actor for this role. It turned out that all our comedians are very Russian, and finding an “Englishman” is a whole problem. They offered two completely different types of actors for this role - Lev Durov and Alexander Shirvindt. But during the auditions, Maslennikov saw that as soon as they started playing, something un-English immediately came out. And then he remembered Brondukov, who, it seemed to him, was international. They met, but Borislav Nikolaevich immediately said: “What kind of Englishman am I? I have a Ukrainian accent!” Maslennikov said that the role could be re-voiced. Then Brondukov said: “It’s great if it’s Igor Efimov.” There was an actor at Lenfilm who worked mainly in the dubbing group. Borislav's inner instinct worked - Efimov voiced the role simply brilliantly. A drawing of the role was found quite quickly. But I had to tinker with the costume. But when they finally found the image of Lestrade - everything is not enough for him, he gets out of everything, everything is pulled “into his pipe” - then Brondukov immediately understood what had to be done. Through this look, through these leggings, through this stupid cap, I understood where to go

A special word about the music for the film. Maslennikov himself admitted that a huge part of success is music. “Remove the music of Vladimir Dashkevich from these films - and they will become uninteresting and insipid,” he said in an interview. However, the style was not found immediately. The director tried his best to explain to the composer what kind of “British, imperial” and at the same time ironic music he would like to have in the film; he even spent the night at the radio, recording BBC music scenes onto a cassette player. Maslennikov insisted that Dashkevich listen to this intro and write something in this style, but the composer constantly forgot about the radio. When the director called again with a reminder, out of despair, Dashkevich simply took the phone on a long cord, moved it to the piano and played the first thing that came to mind. And in response I heard: “Vladimir Sergeevich, just don’t leave it like this under any circumstances, now take a pencil and write it down, you’ll forget later.” This is how the legendary melody appeared that accompanies all the films in the Holmes series.

Drawing by Victor Okovity for the film "Acquaintance" (from the archive of I. Maslennikov)

All that remains is to find where to film Victorian England. Mrs. Hudson's apartment itself was made in the Lenfilm pavilions based on old photographs of the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Great luck According to the director, the artist Mark Kaplan also worked for the film. Especially for the film, he studied the illustrations of Sidney Paget, who worked on Conan Doyle's books during his lifetime. Pyrotechnician Alexander Yakovlev invented a fireplace made of gypsum logs. Everyone was amazed to discover that it was possible to install a fireplace in the pavilion that would be exactly like a real one. The base of the fireplace was laid out of refractory brick, then the pyrotechnicians built a metal cap with a pipe, and a snake-shaped burner tube connected to a gas cylinder was placed at the base. This burner was decorated with painted plaster logs. The flame size was controlled by a valve.

Cameraman A. Lapshov, assistant cameraman A. Ustinov, I. Maslennikov and others in Holmes’s apartment, 1980 (from the archive of I. Maslennikov)

Maslennikov himself came up with the titles for the series. His idea was embodied by the artist of combined filming: at that time there was no computer graphics and everything was done in a handicraft way.
This is what Viktor Okovity, an artist of combined photography, recalled:
“I want the credits to appear on paper after ironing,” said the director. And I was already thinking about how to do this, where to get an old English iron, how to make the inscriptions appear, so that it would be in the style of the painting, and so on. He wanted to get another shot using a spray bottle or cologne, which sprayed a mysterious liquid that revealed the letters. And just at that time, in 1978, I got married, and they gave me a French cologne in an unusual, beautiful bottle. I adapted it for this variant of the appearance of letters."

Drawing by Viktor Okovity for the film “Bloody Inscription” (from the archive of I. Maslennikov)

Furniture, paintings, and dishes were found in museums and bought from the population. The British, having seen the film, were surprised: the details, right down to the table setting, were all authentic. Livanov smokes a pipe for real, but on the violin he only imitates the movements professional musician, who showed how it should be done.
By the way, there were three pipes in the film. Exactly the same, they differed only in the brands. I did the first one famous master Fedorov, nicknamed "Grandfather", who also made pipes for Stalin and Simenon. He made the first pipe and almost immediately after that he died under the wheels of a trolleybus. Between the filming of the first and second films, this pipe was stolen. The second pipe was made by Fedorov’s students. After filming one of the episodes, the second tube moved to the Lenfilm Museum. It is no longer known who made the third, and it is no longer known why the second could not be used. But it was this third pipe that survived and is kept by Livanov. He smoked “Golden Fleece” tobacco in it (although, according to another version of his, “Amphora”). The tube was so large that it was difficult to hold it in your teeth - a third of the pack fit into it.

Vasily Livanov as Holmes (photo by D. Donskoy, APN)

Igor Maslennikov did not think about making a series. He wanted to limit himself to one film. But the success was such that he eventually had to make a sequel. As a result, 5 films out of 11 episodes were made. And no one, at least in our country, no longer doubts what Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson look like

There is no doubt that Sherlock Holmes is talented. But is this exactly what brings him success? I have always admired Sherlock Holmes, the eccentric but brilliant English detective. From the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the recently released film starring Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes, this character has always been a source of intense interest.

However, he is successful not only due to his innate talent. Of course, he is known for his incredible powers of inference and the many ingenious mysteries he has solved that at first glance seem to be the most ordinary cases, such as a drug overdose or an inaccurate shot at a target. But although he has flaws, he achieves success by combining his other qualities with his talent.

A professional in any field knows that in order to make it in life, you cannot rely on talent alone. By following the pages of the Sherlock Holmes books, we can learn several lessons that will help us be successful in our work.

1. Details of the case

No matter what incarnation Sherlock Holmes appears in, he best quality is a precise eye that sees all the details. Nothing escapes him. Sherlock Holmes can, seeing a person for the first time, tell about where he was, what he did, and also at least a few interesting details about this person and his habits, just by observing him.
If you pay attention to detail, as Sherlock Holmes did, you will see that almost nothing escapes you. For example, you will be able to predict the wishes of your bosses or the questions of clients, knowing their habits and character. Cultivating patience and training your eye for this type of deduction will take time, but the more you do it, the faster you will get the hang of it. This quality is valuable not just for one occasion, it will make your work easier in the future.

2. Some riddles cannot be solved

The stories at the end of Holmes' investigations leave more unanswered questions than there were in the movies or TV shows.
In crime, as in life, there are often more questions than answers. But Holmes doesn't think it's a bad thing. He is not annoyed that he cannot find answers to all questions. Instead, he finds it interesting and saves the information for the future. The puzzle is what matters most to Holmes. If the matter were neatly resolved, he would lose interest, he would be bored without a puzzle in his hands. The never-ending nature of the puzzle keeps him interested in the work.
This is how you should behave in relation to work. It should be a puzzle to be solved, a question to be answered. It should push your brain to come up with new and creative solutions to a problem. If you are not interested in your work, then you are either busy with something other than your own business, or you are not motivated enough.

3. Partners are required

As we know, Holmes' partner, assistant and friend is Watson. He is also the spectator and narrator of the particularly interesting adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Whatever you do, it's good to have an accomplice (or colleague) or at least someone to talk to. Is your partner fully involved in the matter, or is he just giving you hints? Right way, or simply nods and listens to your complaints, in any case, such cooperation benefits you. Even the brilliant Sherlock Holmes needs someone nearby to discuss a new idea with, and of all the techniques and tools for Holmes, the constant presence of Watson is the most useful.

4. The importance of your reputation

Holmes gets a lot of cases because he wants them. This is his passion. However, people also come to Holmes with their problems for a simple reason - they have heard that this is not just a job for him.
You should do the same, regardless of your field of activity. In sports, teams acquire players based on their reputation and statistics. Many jobs require letters of recommendation, because they describe a person's character and abilities. Whatever you do, your work will have an impact on the future. People will still know how you did the job. If you perform poorly, employers and clients will avoid you. If you do a good job, they will come looking for you.

5. There are always different ways to solve a problem

Sherlock Holmes always uses different approaches to solving the problem. Sometimes he appears incognito and asks the right questions. Sometimes he sits all night, smoking a pipe and thinking about a problem. And in other cases, he resorts to deception in order to see the full picture of the crime.
If the path leads to a dead end, Holmes still does not stop. He's going down a different path. Take note of this. I'm not suggesting that you use certain approaches that Sherlock Holmes used to solve a particular case, although if they help, use them too. I think you have to find your own approaches. And if they turn out to be incorrect, try to find more and more. There are always several ways out.

Conclusion

There are many lessons you can learn from Sherlock Holmes that will help you in life and work. These are just a few of them. But no matter what talents Sherlock Holmes had, you need to understand that it was his passion for work that made him the best detective. If you have the same passion, success is guaranteed.

Many generations have admired the ability of the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes to solve even the most incomprehensible mysteries. In his reasoning, he adheres to facts and logic, but Holmes’s main ability can rightfully be called the power of intuition. Anyone can use intuition for everyday observations. Set a goal to develop Sherlock Holmes-like intuition so you can make better decisions when interacting with other people.

Steps

Part 1

Part 4

What is deduction? Sherlock Holmes finds criminals using deduction, a method that allows one to reach conclusions based on guiding theories. Sherlock formulates his theories through connections made through observational skills and personal knowledge.

Build a theory. A master of deduction builds theories on facts, so that he can later come to reliable conclusions based on theories.

• Observe the patterns in your life. Start noticing the who, what, where, why, when and how. For example, pay attention to who makes coffee in the office. It may turn out that the only person who makes coffee until 8 am is Tatyana, the chief accountant.
• Make generalizations based on facts. Using a regularity, we can generalize that all the coffee that is prepared before 8 am will be brewed by Tatyana.
• The theory allows us to conclude that if there is no coffee in the office after 8 am, then Tatyana did not go to work.

1. Test your theory. When you build a theory based on generalizations, try to test it for reliability. According to the example described above, the next time there is no coffee in the office after 8 am, find out if Tatyana is there.

2. Develop problem solving ability . This ability will allow you to use deduction to find optimal solutions. Learn to quickly find solutions to problems to use deduction.

   • First, outline the problem and examine the facts. Collect and analyze information. All possible solutions should be compiled in the form of a list and their shortcomings examined.

The greatest detective of all time, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, invented by Conan Doyle, has been haunting people all over the planet for more than a hundred years. This is the most filmed character, and the final episode of the fourth season of Sherlock, released on January 15, is proof of this. Usually everyone pays attention to Holmes’s method of thinking, but Holmes’ “contribution” to science is also of interest, because on the pages of stories and tales about Holmes the detective’s scientific works are constantly mentioned. The portal's scientific editor refreshed his memory of the canonical set of texts about Holmes and tried to put together the scientific achievements of Conan Doyle's hero.

Education

From the very first work, “A Study in Scarlet,” we are well aware of the “certificate of maturity” compiled by Dr. Watson about his newly-made neighbor on Baker Street.

SHERLOCK HOLMES - HIS CAPABILITIES

No knowledge of literature.

--//-- --//-- philosophy - none.

--//-- --//-- astronomy - none.

--//-- --//-- politicians are weak.

--//-- --//-- botanists - uneven. Knows the properties of belladonna, opium and poisons in general. Has no idea about gardening.

--//-- --//-- geology - practical but limited. Identifies different soil samples at a glance. After walking, he shows me splashes of dirt on his trousers and, based on their color and consistency, determines what part of London it is from.

--//-- --//-- chemistry is deep.

--//-- --//-- anatomy - accurate, but unsystematic.

--//-- --//-- criminal chronicles - huge, he knows, it seems, all the details of every crime committed in the nineteenth century.

He plays the violin well.

He is an excellent fencer with swords and espadrons, and an excellent boxer.

Thorough practical knowledge English laws.

In addition, already in the first work we encounter Holmes’s article on the method of reflection. We will also give this fragment exactly, because this is the only direct quote from the works of Holmes himself known to us.

The title of the article was somewhat pretentious: “The Book of Life”; the author tried to prove how much a person can learn by systematically and in detail observing everything that passes before his eyes.

“With one drop of water,” the author wrote, “a person who knows how to think logically can conclude about the possibility of the existence of the Atlantic Ocean or Niagara Falls, even if he has not seen either one or the other and has never heard of them. Every life is a huge chain of causes and effects, and we can understand its nature one by one. The art of inference and analysis, like all other arts, is learned by long and diligent work, but life is too short, and therefore no mortal can achieve complete perfection in this field. Before turning to the moral and intellectual aspects of the matter, which present the greatest difficulties, let the investigator begin with the solution of simpler problems. Let him, by looking at the first person he meets, learn to immediately determine his past and his profession. It may seem childish at first, but such exercises sharpen your powers of observation and teach you how to look and what to look at. By a person’s nails, by his sleeves, shoes and the fold of his trousers at the knees, by the thickenings on the big and index finger, by his facial expression and the cuffs of his shirt - from such trifles it is not difficult to guess his profession. And there is no doubt that all this taken together will prompt a knowledgeable observer to the correct conclusions.”

("A study in Scarlet")

Chemistry

As we remember, it was in the chemical laboratory, at the time of making an important discovery in analytical chemistry, that Holmes met Watson:

In this high room, countless bottles and vials glittered on shelves and everywhere. There were low, wide tables everywhere, thickly laden with retorts, test tubes, and Bunsen burners with flickering tongues of blue flame. The laboratory was empty, and only in the far corner, bent over the table, a young man was intently fiddling with something. Hearing our steps, he looked back and jumped up.

"Found! Found! - he shouted jubilantly, rushing towards us with a test tube in his hands. “I finally found a reagent that is precipitated only by hemoglobin and nothing else!”

("A study in Scarlet")

Subsequently, we will meet Holmes many more times in his home laboratory doing chemical experiments. And it was chemistry that Holmes initially chose as his occupation after retiring from dealings with the criminal world; at least in “Holmes’s Last Case,” this is the desire he voiced before the capture of Moriarty’s gang. However, later, before returning to England, he actually studied coal tar, although no publications are reported.

"Holmes worked hard on chemical research"

Sydney Paget

Musicology

Everyone knows that Holmes played the violin excellently (as Watson notes, even difficult things) and loved listening to music. While investigating the Bruce-Partington drawings case, Holmes was simultaneously working on a monograph, The Polyphonic Motets of Lassus, dedicated to the work of the Flemish Renaissance composer Orlando di Lasso (Lassus is the Latinized form of his surname). According to Watson, the monograph “was printed for a narrow circle of readers, and experts regarded it as the last word science on this issue."

By the way, Holmes also had an excellent understanding of literature and painting. At Baskerville Hall, he easily distinguished a portrait by Joshua Reynolds from Martin Knoller, quoted Goethe and Hafez, the Bible and even a letter from Gustav Flaubert to George Sand in French.

"Holmes Playing the Violin"

Sydney Paget

Medicine and anthropology

Of course, the doctor in Conan Doyle's stories is Dr. Watson, but he is just a military doctor. Holmes himself was well versed in complex diseases and, most importantly, knew how to simulate them perfectly. For example, the state of catalepsy (“waxy flexibility” in psychiatry), when the patient is unconscious in complete muscle atonia, as in sleep with rapid eye movements. Or “a rare disease that originates from Sumatra,” its simulation helped the detective catch Dr. Calverton Smith from the story “Sherlock Holmes is dying” (the plot almost completely coincides with the second episode of the last season of the TV series Sherlock).

Holmes did not seem to have any actual medical scientific articles, but his excellent knowledge of anatomy often helped him in his work, and he became the author of two articles on the shape of the ears and its inheritance, published in the Anthropological Journal. This is mentioned in the story "Cardboard Box".

Ash study

In many of his works, Holmes studied cigar and cigarette ashes in order to solve crimes. Already in “A Study in Scarlet” he mentioned his work on varieties of tobacco, and in “The Sign of Four” he clarifies:

“I wrote several works. One of them, entitled “Identification of tobacco varieties by ashes,” describes one hundred and forty varieties of cigar, cigarette and pipe tobacco. Attached are color photographs showing different types ashes. Tobacco ash is one of the most common evidence. Sometimes very important. If, for example, you can say that the person who committed the murder smokes Indian tobacco, then the search range naturally decreases. To an experienced eye, the difference between the black ash of Trichinopoly tobacco and the white flakes of bird's eye is as great as between potatoes and cabbage."

Regional studies and ethnography

And in this area Holmes succeeded during his forced vacation, between his “death” at the Reichenbach Falls and his return to London. It is known that during these three years he visited China and Tibet, studied Buddhist culture, communicated with the Dalai Lama and published research results under the pseudonym Sigerson from Norway.

Linguistics and linguistics, cryptography

Holmes himself had a very good command of languages. We know that he knew German, Italian, Russian, Latin, Greek. In the story “The Devil's Foot,” Holmes was brought to the county of Cornwall by the study of the ancient Cornish (in the story - Cornish) language. Holmes believed that the language was of Arabian origin and derived from the Chaldean language. Of course, modern linguists would look at this theory with a smile: Cornish is now considered part of the Celtic languages. But the detective solved a terrible crime, also bread. By the way, Holmes would probably be curious to know that the Cornish language is gradually becoming spoken, and the number of speakers is growing.

In addition, Holmes was a great expert in cryptography and ciphers. The story “The Dancing Men” itself became a textbook example of the work of deciphering a code made up of drawings of men - a relatively simple cipher, where each man corresponded to a letter of the English alphabet, and flags in hands divided the text into words. And it is in this story that it is mentioned that Holmes himself is the author of a “small scientific work", where 160 types of ciphers were analyzed.