Conan Doyle, self-dosing, and Dr Reginald Hoare of Aston, Birmingham

I've been reading and thinking about ACD's medical training, mainly because I'm re-reading Stark Munro Letters in great detail for the first time.

Personally, I struggle to understand Doyle's exact timelines for his medical apprencticeships/assistantships, and how he accomplished his academic requirements (coursework and practical work). 'Memories & Adventures' is quite informative (and entertaining), and from it we learn about Doyle's two ship-board expeditions (Arctic and West Africa), and three experiences with doctors:

• Summer of '78: 'Dr. Richardson, running a low-class practice in the poorer quarters of Sheffield'
• Four months: 'Dr. Elliot living in a townlet in Shropshire which rejoiced in the extraordinary name of “Ruyton-of-the-eleven-towns.”'
• 1879: Dr. Hoare, a well-known Birmingham doctor, who had a five-horse City practice.
• Oct 1881 - Jan 1882 on board 'Mayumba' to Africa as ship's surgeon 
• May 1882: Brief stint with Budd before setting up independently in Southsea 

Let's look at Dr. Hoare, and Doyle's enduring connection to the area.

"After a winter’s work at the University my next assistantship was a real money-making proposition to the extent of some two pounds a month. This was with Dr. Hoare, a well-known Birmingham doctor, who had a five-horse City practice, and every working doctor, before the days of motors, would realize that this meant going from morning to night. He earned some three thousand a year, which takes some doing, when it is collected from 3s. 6d. visits and 1s. 6d. bottles of medicine, among the very poorest classes of Aston. Hoare was a fine fellow, stout, square, red-faced, bushy-whiskered and dark-eyed. His wife was also a very kindly and gifted woman, and my position in the house was soon rather that of a son than of an assistant. The work, however, was hard and incessant, and the pay very small. I had long lists of prescriptions to make up every day, for we dispensed our own medicine, and one hundred bottles of an evening were not unknown. On the whole I made few mistakes, though I have been known to send out ointment and pill boxes with elaborate directions on the lid and nothing inside. I had my own visiting list, also, the poorest or the most convalescent, and I saw a great deal, for better or worse, of very low life. Twice I returned to this Birmingham practice and always my relations with the family became closer. At my second visit my knowledge had greatly extended and I did midwifery cases, and the more severe cases in general practice as well as all the dispensing. I had no time to spend any money and it was as well, for every shilling was needed at home."

While Doyle was staying with Hoare, he published an article titled “Gelseminum as a Poison” in the British Medical Journal (20 Sep 1879, page 483, see a copy in  ACD Encyclopedia, not indexed in Pubmed). The article is authored 'A.C.D. Clifton House, Aston Road, Birmingham.' In the article, Doyle states that 'several years ago' (in his teens!) he had suffered from 'a persistent neuralgia' and taken gelseminum - a plant extract of yellow jasmine. Doyle states that he "recently had an opportunity of experimenting with a quantity of fresh tincture" - presumably in the dispensary he now worked at each evening. Having Dr. Hoare nearby while conducting self-experimentation would have been useful - if indeed Doyle shared his work with his employer.

In M&A Doyle mentions that "Twice I returned to this Birmingham practice and always my relations with the family became closer. At my second visit my knowledge had greatly extended and I did midwifery cases, and the more severe cases in general practice as well as all the dispensing." When were these two visits exactly?

Well, one was around March 1882, as Doyle yet again published a medical article, this time a case study. The article titled 'Notes on a Case of Leucocythaemia' appeared in The Lancet (25 Mar 1882, page 490, see a copy in  ACD Encyclopedia, not indexed in Pubmed). The name has a typo in the name, and was sent from 'Aston'. In the article, Doyle describes that case of a patient presenting with what we now call leukemia (a cancer of the bone marrow resulting in an over-production of aberrant white blood cells). A 29-year-old presented with a massively enlarged spleen that had developed over a few weeks, and Doyle examined his blood under a microscope finding white blood cells vastly over-produced. What greatly interests me is that Doyle described a positive treatment with chemotherapy - 'arsenic in large doses, in combination with the iodide and chlorate of potash'. Doyle's report highlighted that the patient had previously had malaria (ague), but I think his comment that 'The tumour has already diminished in size, and some of the more distressing secondary symptoms have been alleviated' is infinitely more significant. Arsenic (as arsenic trioxide) is front-line therapy to treat a specific form of leukemia (APL) but only approved in 2000 by the FDA. The first reports of using arsenic to treat leukemia were published in the US in 1878, so this represents a remarkable early use by Doyle (and Hoare). 

As medical articles these have been analyzed. My interest in these medical articles is that they both tie Doyle to Dr. Hoare, and therefore provide two precise dates for times when Doyle was serving. Did Dr. Hoare encourage Doyle to publish his medical reports? Or was it simply that bustling Birmingham and a busy practice under Dr. Hoare presented a great chance for medical observations worth sharing with his peers.

Apart from the two reports from Birmingham, Doyle only published one other medical case report (titled ''The Remote Effects of Gout), from Southsea on 24 Nov 1884). Doyle did publish some descriptive articles based on his experience in the Boer War (where he was again a practicing physician) but not case observations.

There is of course Doyle's medical thesis. It was titled 'An essay upon vasomotor changes in tabes dorsalis' (i.e. the neurologic manifestation of late-stage syphilus) and written around April 1885 at Bush Villas, Southsea. Towards the end of the thesis, Doyle presents a short discussion on possible treatment options, and specifically nitroglycerine: 'Nitroglycerin however in a one per cent solution is a most handy and convenient preparation' (page 81 of the thesis, digitized at the ACD Encyclopedia). But we again find Doyle, a young man stating 'The dose, beginning with one drops may be safely encreased to fifteen or twenty, a congestive headache being the first sign of an overdose. I have myself taken as many as forty minim's of Murrell's solution without inconvenience'. 

Does a young man aged twenty five require nitroglycerine, or is this again Doyle exploring dose windows to study effects? Two of four papers by Doyle from the 1880s refer to self-dosing. It certainly appears Doyle self-administered (prescribed), but it is difficult to determine if this was always because of a malady, or instead out of curiosity alone. 

This post was meant to be about Dr. Hoare - so that'll have to be a follow-up post!

Where do Sherlockian presentations go when the meeting is over?

As Gasogene of a scion, I'm often thinking about presentations. Watson's Tin Box meets every month, and at eleven of twelve meetings, we have a presentation. In 2025, I tried to invite some strong guest speakers to expose our members to some well-known Sherlockians and outside perspectives (Burt Wolder, Travis Schick, Ross Davies, Art Taylor, and Emily Miranker this coming February) and to give our new members time to think about what their first talks might look like. As you can see, there were lots of members speaking also:

This month, new 2025 member Michael Ravnitzky spoke, and in 2026, the speaker list already includes several new members including Liane Luini, and Johanna Draper Carlson will be visiting us from the mid-west! Getting the balance of membership and guests is not easy, visiting speakers aren't easy to solicit for a Monday evening. I have two more guests in my mind for 2026 that I need to schedule, but I don't want to 'crowd out' first-time speakers from WTB, nor those who have presented before but are ready with a new idea. The scion meetings aren't symposia - we have room for one talk of up to 20 minutes.

Every talk has been entertaining and thought-provoking. As the ideas develop, the prepared presentation text can evolve into a Sherlockian article. I remember very well that Olivia Annunzi (who spoke this year on vampirism in the Bible) spoke in 2024 on her research into The Adventure of the Yellow Face - and the response to her wonderful talk was "you need to publish this, the (Sherlockian) world needs to read it!". 

My hope is that the talks we hear at WTB are destined to evolve into articles, and that the presenters benefit from the questions and ideas offered by the WTB audience. The scion is an incubator - I can't think of a better purpose.

On the other hand, my first scion was the Red Circle of Washington, D.C. The scion is now 75 years old, and operates differently. It is in some ways a lunch club - it has a larger attendance (easily greater than 50) and meets every three or four months. Peter Blau MCs the meetings, the main event of the meeting is a presentation from a guest. Given Peter's standing in the community, there are guest presenters from near and far (several in recent memory traveled from locations including New York and California).

Again I find myself wondering, are these presentations articles that are in preparation, or a stand-alone talk? Or is it one being given for the third of fourth time?

I also wonder what the speaker agenda was 20 years ago at WTB? Or 50 years ago at Red Circle? Did those talks evolve into articles? What happened to all those words?

Every now and then, a Sherlockian will self-publish an article based on a presentation. I have two such examples from speakers at the Red Circle.

The first is 'The Sherlockian Triviality Index' by Sherdon Wesson (died 1997). The inside cover states that the article is based on a 'paper delivered to a meeting of The Red Circle, scion society the Baker Street Irregulars, in Washington, D.C., 1983.'

According to the Scuttelbutt from the Spermaceti Press newsletter, "he was for many years director of press relations for the American Iron and Steel Institute in Washington, and the 'poet laureate' of The Silver Blaze (Southern Division), and an enthusiastic printer with a basement full of hand presses and type. His scholarship and wit were a mainstay of The Red Circle, and some fine examples of both will be found in the pages of The Baker Street Journal."

There were multiple opportunities to publish Sherlockian articles in the 1980s (more than now perhaps!), so an exhaustive search is not possible, but it appears this article did not make it into the Baker Street Journal (index here), nor Baker Street Miscellania nor the Sherlock Holmes Society. Nevertheless, this was published in the booklet form shown above, and again in a miniature book form a few years later.

The second publication is from the 1950s by one of the founders of The Red Circle, Svend Petersen (1911-1992).

In 1953 Svend self-published three papers in a typescript format: "The testamentary capacity of Sherlock Holmes; Parallel case; The unwritten canon lore".  These three papers give us insight into an early BSI dinner (1950), and the two Red Circle talks are among the first held - the scion was founded in 1949.

THE TESTAMENTARY CAPACITY OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

Read, in part, at the annual dinner of the Baker Street Irregulars, New York City, January 6, 1950

PARALLEL CASES

Read at a meeting of the Red Circle, Washington, D. C., June 15, 1951.

THE UNWRITTEN CANON LORE

Read at a meeting of the Red Circle, Washington, D. C., April 19, 1952.

It appears that none of these three articles appeared (at least with this title) in the Baker Street Journal.

I must say, I'm surprised. Why? Because my approach to research is as follows:

• Idea! Is it new? (Check literature)... Is it interesting? Is there enough information available to create a narrative?
• Compile primary sources
• Create a draft paper, preferably including images that could serve as slides to support a presentation
• GIVE PRESENTATION - preferably several times. Note feedback and questions - usually pointing me to things I didn't know.
• Draft a manuscript based on the presentation - with plenty of references.

I suppose I assumed that others present papers and that they would evolve into published articles. Checking the BSJ is about the limit of digital searching available, but this explains why people may have self-published/printed their talks. 

It has only occurred to me once to think about self-publishing some of my research - because it would be unreadable as an article, but generally speaking I have this blog to 'self publish'. And the nice thing about my blog.... I can edit and update the posts over time.

I consider my blog a way to draft ideas and record events, most of which are not candidates for publication in an august journal or newsletter. Nobody will find my blog posts tucked into the back of a book, there will never be signed copies. Maybe I need to start printing them and handing them out.... 

Watson's Tin Box meeting summary - December 15, 2025

On the third Monday of each month, the Watson's Tin Box of Ellicott City scion meets at Union Jack's in Columbia MD and we gathered on December 15 for another great gathering of members - 23 in total - but it felt a lot more crowded than that!

I again took a census of where people attended the meeting from (MD locations unless otherwise stated): Baltimore; Carol County; Columbia; DC; Darnestown; Ellicott City; Frederick; Gaithersburg; Harford County; Silver Spring; Woodbine. Quite a mix! It was bloody freezing outside (16 F) so we understandably lost a few attendees along the way.

The story of the meeting was Black Peter. This meant walking through the bar to set up the Evidence Box carrying a full-size harpoon! No rum was consumed in dirty glasses.

After introductions, we moved to the toasts, with a simple toast to 'The Woman' (Irene Adler), and Tom Fahres delivered his traditional Haiku for the story. 

Harpooned pig carcass

Is his morning exercise

Strange fellow, that Holmes

We then moved on to Announcements - 

• We were reminded that the Irene's Cabinet publication from WTB will return in 2026. The deadline for submissions to Jacquelynn Bost-Morris was December 15 - late last-minute submissions will be considered.
• At least a dozen of our members are heading to New York for the Baker Street Irregulars 'weekend' in early January. If you're interested, you can learn more here.
• The DC Whiskey and Sodality meeting will again take place on Sunday, December 21, 2 pm at Shelly's Back Room, 1331 F Street NW. Contact Terry McCammon for details. "Excellent ventilation, excellent pub type food. Good whisky and draft beer list. I have cigars to share." Smoking optional ; ventilation excellent.
• As mentioned in a separate blog post, Debbie Clark announced that as she's moving homes, the amazing Evidence Box collection now has a new home.
• Michelle March announced that Harford Community College will hold a course on Single Stick Combat - you can find details of how to register here. Here's a brief course description: "Join us to master the basics of Single Stick Combat and connect with a rich martial tradition that has captivated enthusiasts for centuries".... BYO deerstalker.
• The next Red Circle next meets on Saturday March 14 - details here - I will be speaking!
• Another great reason to come to meetings: Debbie Clark brought along free Sherlockian goodies (!) for people as part of her clean-up and move. Many walked out with new t-shirts and knick-knacks. I picked up a Sherlock action figure.... with removable pipe !!

As a final announcement, our createive-artist-in-residence Michelle March shared her story-themed creative product for the month that was also the prize - an amazing shirt design with harpoon incorporated that says it all:

We've had some fantastic talks lately, with quite a few guests to inspire our members. A fantastic talk from a new member as of 2025: Michael Ravnitzky. Michael gave a talk that we all hope will be a Sherlockian article in no time at all.

Michael began 'I’m here to take you on an adventure – the story of the famous non-canonical phrase “Elementary, My Dear Watson”....'. Michael walked us through the origins of the phrase that never appears in the stories, and reported on statistical analyses to demonstrate to us that it is very likely that Holmes did say 'Elementary, my dear Watson' in some of those stories still locked away in the tin box.

 

 

We next moved on to our story for the month: Black Peter. As always, Debbie Clark presented the contents of the evidence box. This box had a LOT of documents. Along with the photo of Debbie displaying the contents, I've placed here some images of items from the evidence box - you can look at all the items here at the Watsons Tin Box website.

I really like the Brambletye Hotel receipt, because it's a real hotel in New Forest!

And so to the story discussion. In some ways this is a complex story - is it a story of financial crimes? It is one of those Doyle stories that involves someone who commits a crime over the seas (or on the seas) then brings their wealth back to a quiet part fo respectable England to start a new life - it's a kind of nautical. 'Boscombe Valley mystery'.

We ran a quick survey on the 'rum vs brandy/whiskey tantalus' and the majority were non-sailors and would have chosen the tantalus - so Sherlock's logic was correct! We also feltBlack Peter may have built the ultimate man cave.

We wondered why Holmes ended the story by stating he was heading off to Norway. After all, he'd been there just a few years earlier as Sigerson. Would he blow his cover if he returned so soon? And what was he going to do in Norway? It was also pointed out that 'Norway was not Norway as we know it' in 1895 - it was part of Sweden till 1906. Either way, was Holmes after some of those lost bonds?

There was a general feeling that the police should have cast a closer eye over Black Peter's wife and daughter - after all, while the harpoon transfixing required great strength, they'd been through hell living with an abusive alcoholic.

We ended with with traditional quiz, set by our torquemadae Olivia Millunzi. There was no tie-breaker! Well done Cindy for winning the quiz, and the prize!

2025/26 meeting schedule as it stands:

The Evidence Boxes from Watson's Tin Box in a new home

I'm working on a summary for last night's December 2025 Watson's Tin Box meeting, but wanted to put a brief separate post together. Last night, Debbie Clark shared with those present that as she has moved out of her home and into new accommodation, a new home for Paul Churchill's Evidence Boxes was needed. This is important, because as I've described before, each month we discuss a story and examine the evidence, which Debbie Clark walks the group through.

A few weeks ago I met up at Debbie's home with her enthusiastic Sherlockian helpers: Denny Dobry and Jeff Decker who came down from PA to help box up the boxes, and gather up the larger items to move to my home. We had help, you see, because it's a little more than sixty boxes: some stories have two boxes, some have a really large box, and some have items associated with them such as a harpoon, a plaster skull, a jellyfish in a jar, bee-keeping equipment, a replica gramophone, a poker, a horse riding crop, a bicycle tire, and many framed pictures, and so on.

It took two trips with my car, and then some frantic time putting together two large shelving units to house it all. For now, that shelving unit is in my thankfully not cluttered basement storage area, and in the coming months it will move to my finished basement area (which may morph into a 221B sitting room - that's the dream!).

I'm honored to be responsible for the Evidence Boxes, until the next person becomes the steward of these unique items. 

Recognize any of the stories? In time, I'll be happy to have people visit them, and of course, once set up. I'm also open to displaying a box at a scion meeting.

So along with the evidence boxes came two extra boxes, full of catalog cards. These two boxes were the first effort to create a photographic record and catalog of all the items in all the boxes. They were created by Beth Austin, and after her sad passing in 2020, the boxes were handed to Debbie for safe keeping.

Let's peek inside. These boxes are an amazing archival creation in their own right.

Yes, there's a tab for each story, and each catalog card contains a photograph of an item, and a handwritten quote from the stories. Beth had taken photos of each item between 2010 and 2020, and been printing and arranging these cards. From what I can tell, the index was almost complete. I'll evaluate the catalog cards each time I take a box to the WTB meeting, and work out the best way to complete the small number of stories where there is a little work to finish up - a good project for the WTB scion.

These are so amazing - I haven't counted but there must be over 1,000 cards easily... easily! :

 

Yes, I went for the cliched seasonal evidence card here:

An array of catalog cards from the Black Peter story (the Dec 2025 WTB story), showing on top the receipt for Holmes and Watson's stay at the Brambletye Hotel:

Peering into the card index we see an advertisement for Howard Garrideb, Constructor of Agricultural Machinery:

If Sherlock Holmes made crosswords

Did you know Eille Norwood set crosswords? 

Daily Express - Saturday 25 February 1928
ELEMENTARY WATSON!

IF SHERLOCK HOLMES MADE CROSSWORDS

Would Sherlock Holmes have been a crossword puzzle "fan"? In the opinion of Mr. Eille Norwood, the distinguished actor who created the stage and screen roles of Sherlock Holmes, he would have been one of the foremost authorities on the pastime.

In Holmes' unavoidable absence - he was definitely "killed" some time ago by his creator Sir A. Conan Doyle - Mr. Norwood himself claims the distinction. He has been a crossword puzzle enthusiast from the beginning of the craze, and has compiled for his own amusement and that of his friends many crossword puzzles of great originality and ingenuity - just the sort of puzzle, in fact, that Holmes might have compiled as a change from violin playing and fooling Scotland Yard.

The "Daily Express" has invited Mr. Norwood to set for its readers a special series of crossword puzzles having "the Sherlock Holmes touch." The first of the series will appear next Monday.

These puzzles will be found not only original and ingenious; neither are they "above the heads" of average crossword puzzle solvers.

Every reader of the "Daily Express" who looks to crossword puzzles for mental recreation will find Mr. Norwood's examples stimulating and extremely interesting.

Daily Express - Monday 27 February 1928

Daily Express - Friday 14 June 1935
An Eille Norwood admirer
Some of your crossword puzzles are so simple that the solution time is only a question of how rapidly the letters can be written in. One looks forward to Tuesdays and Fridays for Eille Norwood's clever and interesting puzzles. I wish we couls have more of these.

D.E. Douch, Malcombe-terrace, Bournemouth

Daily Express - Monday 22 November 1937
Reader T Johnston of Fulham writes of wanting to know something of crossword puzzler Eille Norwood, who has contributed over 1,400 puzzles to the Daily Express during the last 9 years.

Norwood is tall, dark, "distinguished looking." In the 20's he played SherlockHolmes in a run of West End plays, in the films too. Now he lives in a small house with a garage n Farnham - in none too good health.

Club room repartee got Norwood his job. One 1928 day, as he was sitting in club-room armchair solving a puzzle, friend Reginald Pound, then features editor of the Daily Express, asked what he thought of crosswords. Norwood said clue he had just solved was childish (it was: "Part of the verb to have," answer, "Has"). "How would you have clued it?" asked Pound. Said Norwood, "If this comes before ten, you'll have to hurry." "Would you like to set a series for us?" asked Pound.

Crossword takes about 1 1/2 hours to set. The designs are prepared first to allow the use of both long and short words. The interlocking of the words doesn't take as long as the wording of the clues.

Small-minded readers often haggle over the clues. One advised Norwood to study natural history because he had given a clue reading "One gadfly will produce 150, for example." The answer was Cleg (CL equals 150; e.g. means "for example.") South Kensington Natural History Museum fly expert said, "I expect several hundred would be near enough."

Daily Express - Friday 08 April 1938

Modest feature which started as a fashion, became an institution, doesn't get much boosting: the cross-word. On page 18 today appears 1,000th crossword composed for the Daily Express by EILLE NORWOOD. In all those thousand, Norwood claims, he has never been caught out in an error - except one "literal" misreading of one letter for another.

He always has crosswords to hand for six or seven weeks ahead, in case of illness: just as well, for he is only just recovering from attack of shingles which has lasted on & off, for ten months. He works late at night.

Norwood's name was originally Anthony Brett. When he went on the stage against his father's wishes (he is only actor who has played Sherlock Holmes on both stage & screen), he looked round for another name.

He took Norwood because he happened to be staying there; Eille because he saw a small child write that when trying to spell its own name. He doesn't know what child's real name was. Eille is pronounced I-ly. Name has its disadvantages; Norwood once returned telegram, meant for him, which was addressed Eleanor Wood.

With World War 2 days away, Eille Norwood published his last crossword. There was no fanfare or announcement that they were ending: 

Daily Express - Tuesday 29 August 1939