A Fact A Day # 7

Yesterday we had Detective Fiction. Let us follow it with more. Here are 6 facts concerning Sherlock Holmes, the lean and thin, keen eyed, magnifying-glass wielding, occasionally cocaine-smoking eccentric Detective:

SHERLOCK HOLMES (b1854-will never die)

1. Sherlock Holmes emerged as a fictional character in 1887. Out of his 60 cases, (56 short stories and 4 novels) only 2 of them ('The Blanched Soldier' and 'The Lion's Mane' are narrated by himself. His only family is his brother Mycroft Holmes although he has mentioned of a sister once.

2. Mycroft is described as even more gifted than Sherlock in matters of observation and deduction. However, he lacks Sherlock's drive and energy, preferring to spend his time at ease in the Diogenes Club.

3. Holmes' primary intellectual detection method is deductive reasoning of the solution to a crime. It is known as Holmesian Deuction. Holmesian deduction appears to consist primarily of drawing inferences based on either straightforward practical principles—which are the result of careful inductive study, such as Holmes's study of different kinds of cigar ashes or inference to the best explanation

4. He is the first fictional personality to be bestowed an Extraordinary Honorary Fellowship Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry.

5. Sherlock Holmes remains a great inspiration for forensic science, especially for the way his acute study of a crime scene yields small clues as to the precise sequence of events. He makes great use of trace evidence such as shoe and tire impressions, as well as fingerprints, ballistics and handwriting analysis, now known as questioned document examination.

6. He has societies in his name too. In 1934, the Sherlock Holmes Society, in London, and the Baker Street Irregulars in New York were founded. Both are still active though the Sherlock Holmes Society was dissolved in 1937 to be resuscitated only in 1951.

Note: I have mentioned 'will never die' on his birth date as Sherlock Holmes did not have any specific 'death' day. The other reason is that he will never cease to fantasize us and will never die out of our minds.