The Maeda Clan of Kaga

THANK YOU to Tomoya Yoshida who helped me write this post.

Over on the 'Strangers' Room', the Japanese Sherlockian Tomoya Yoshida posted that there's an exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum right now called “Hyakumangoku! The Maeda Clan of Kaga”. On display is a letter written by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Here is a photo from the exhibition that Tomoya shared with me from his visit to the exhibition, along with the placard information:

Wow! Let's start with the exhibition. 

The exhibition commemorates the 100th Anniversary of the 'Maeda Ikutokukai Foundation', established to preserve the cultural legacy of the Maeda family, former rulers of the Kaga Domain and one of the most powerful samurai houses of Edo period Japan (1603-1868). Over centuries, the Maeda amassed an extraordinary collection of manuscripts, books, artworks, arms, armour, and personal objects that reflected both their political influence, scholarship, and culture. After the family’s move from Kanazawa to Tokyo in the modern era, the 'Marquis' Maeda Toshinari sought to ensure that these materials would be carefully protected and made available for future study through the creation of the Foundation.

Of course, the central items in the collection relate to 'National Treasures' such as Samurai swords, and an important archive of rare Japanese and Chinese books, historical documents, and family records. Of interest to this blog, in the 20th century the Marquis Toshinari (1885-1942) collected an international collection of autographs and letters while serving as a military attaché in London. He acquired items written by monarchs, statesmen, military leaders, writers, scientists, artists.... such as Arthur Conan Doyle. 

There is a catalog of the exhibition that I need - but isn't mailing to the US - but a digital PDF of the items in the exhibition lists the 'letter by Arthur Conan Doyle'.

The exhibition catalog itself provides images of both sides of the letter - again, Tomoya shared an image from the catalog (p 318) displaying both sides of the letter:

So lets look at the letter. Only the first page of the letter is shown - so Doyle's signature is not displayed in the exhibition. It is addressed to fellow author (and journalist) David Christie Murray (1847-1907). This is a significant literary letter - it describes Doyle's feelings My Contemporaries In Fiction killing off his famed literary character:

Reform Club

May 8 / 96

My Dear Christie Murray,—I have been in Egypt and have only just got back and received your note. Poor Holmes is dead and damned. I couldn't revive him if I would (at least not for years), for I have had such an overdose of him that I feel towards him as I do towards pâté de foie gras, of which I once ate too much, so that the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day. Any old Holmes story you are, of course, most welcome to use.

I am house-hunting in the country, which means continual sallies and alarms, but I should much like to meet you before I go away, to talk over our American experiences. I do hope you are not going to allow lecturing to get in the way of your writing. We have too few born story-tellers.—

With all kind regards.

Yours very truly,

A. Conan Doyle.

Doyle's thoughts on Sherlock are known because Christie Murray included the transcript of this letter and several others in his book 'Recollections', published in 1908. Christie Murray had died the year prior (1907), yet there is no introduction in the book acknowledging that the book was completed by an editor, so presumably it was in press at the time of Christie Murray's death. He had been fairly prolific as an author, but was unwell for the last ten years of his life and  'Recollections' was his first book in ten years.

Doyle and Christie Murray carried on a correspondence, and even met in the United States in 1894. They also presumably interacted regularly in England - though both were 'on the road' a great deal with travels. DC's book 'My contemporaries in fiction' (1897) spent a great deal of space praising Conan Doyle in Chapter 13 (titled 'The Young Romancers', and DC likely earned Conan Doyle's appreciation with the praise for his non-Sherlock work:

'The Sherlock Holmes stories are far, indeed, from being Dr. Doyle’s best work, but it is to them that he mainly owes his popularity. They took the imaginative side of the general reader, and their popular properties are likely to keep them before the public mind for a long while to come. To estimate Dr. Doyle’s position as a writer one has to meet him in ‘The Refugees,’ in ‘The White Company,’ and in ‘Rodney Stone.’ In each of these there is evident a sound and painstaking method of research, as well as a power of dramatic invention; and in combination with these is a style of unaffected manliness, simplicity, and strength, which is at once satisfactory to the student and attractive to the mass of people who are content to be pleased by such qualities without knowing or asking why. The labour bestowed on ‘The White Company’ may very well be compared to that expended by Charles Reade on ‘The Cloister and the H earth.'

Christie Murray's recollections includes transcriptions of five letters from Doyle, and it's worth reproducing the four letters here. The first is included in a chapter on Christie Murray's handwriting expertise and his researches into the Dreyfus Affair - an espionage scandal that could have inspired several Holmes stories. Doyle was clearly interested in the scandal, and in justice:

“My dear Murray,—Its being a week-end will prevent my coming up for I have always several visitors. I hope when you can come down you will let me know. Very much interested in your views upon the Dreyfus case. I fancy that the Government may know upon evidence which they dare not disclose (spy or traitor evidence) that he is guilty and have convicted him on a  bogus document,—Yours very truly,

(Sgd.) A. Conan Doyle.

The remainding letters are included in a chapter composed of letters received by Christie Murray.  The second letter we have already seen (on display in Tokyo).

The third is on the curious topic of the value of a statue of George Washington being erected in London. Christie Murray first published a letter in newspapers in 1897 on the topic, and presumably Conan Doyle wrote shortly afterwards.

Copy of Letter to David Christie Murray (undated).

My Dear Sir,—I think that your idea of a statue to Washington to be erected by public subscription in London is an admirable one. The future of the world belongs to the Anglo-Celtic races if they can but work in unison, and everything which works for that end makes for the highest. I believe that the great stream which bifurcated a century ago may have re-united before many more centuries have passed, and that we shall all have learned by then that patriotism is not to be limited by flags or systems, but that it should embrace all of the same race and blood and speech. It would be a great thing—one of the most noble and magnanimous things in the history of the world—if a proud people should consent to adorn their capital with the statue of one who bore arms against them. I wish you every success in your  idea, and shall be happy to contribute ten guineas towards its realisation.—Yours very truly,

(Sgd.)     A. Conan Doyle.

Letters four and five are included together. Bother presumably relate to Christie Murray's book 'My contemporaries in fiction' - Doyle was indeed thankful for being counted among peers such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling, and the comparison made with Poe. The second letter refers to having just moved into Undershaw, so the letters were probably also written in 1897 (and may have been direct follow-up correspondence to the Washington statue letter above).

Copy of Letter to David Christie Murray (undated).

Undershaw, Hindhead, Haslemere

My Dear Murray,—I shall be delighted and honoured to have a first glance at the ms. I never read anything of yours which I did not like, so I am sure I shall like it, but there are degrees of liking, and I will tell you frankly which degree I register.

Now you will bear that visit in mind and write to me when you are ready and your work done.—With all kind regards, yours very truly,

(Sgd.)    A. Conan Doyle.

Copy of Letter to David Christie Murray (undated).

Undershaw, Hindhead, Haslemere.

My Dear Murray,—I have just finished your critical book and think it most excellent and useful. I couldn't help writing to you to say so. It is really fine—so well-balanced and clear-sighted and judicial. For kind words about myself many thanks. I don't think we are suffering from critical kindness so much as indiscriminate critical kindness. No one has said enough, as it seems to me, about Barrie or Kipling. I think they are fit—young as they are—to rank with the highest, and that some of Barrie's work, Margaret Ogilvy and A Window in Thrums, will endear him as Robert Burns is endeared to the hearts of the future Scottish race.

I have just settled down here and we are getting the furniture in and all in order. In a week or so it will be quite right. If ever you should be at a loose end at a week-end, or any other time, I wish you would run down. I believe we could make you happy for a few days. Name your date and the room will be ready. Only from the 16th to the 26th it is pre-empted.—With all kind remembrances, yours very truly,

(Sgd.)       A. Conan Doyle

If the Sherlock letter was acquired by Marquis Toshinari while on diplomatic service, one wonders whether the other letters are also 'out there' in private hands, or even with the Maeda Ikutokukai Foundation.

The Doyle letter is something of a curiosity at an exhibition of cultural significant Japanese items from the Maeda clan, but it's a wonderful curiosity.

2025 Carole Dukes Montpellier Award

I received a kind email yesterday from Bill Barnes who leads the Sydney Passengers, advising me that I have "won the Montpellier Award for 2025 - your article "Where Did You Get That Hat?" was judged by your fellow Passengers to be the best bit of research published in The Passengers' Log for the year.... You have also taken out the "Admirable Cobber" Award as well - this is presented to a nominee for the Montpellier Award which displays a high standard of Australian research and content, in line with the late Passenger Arthur Williams’ own such high standards." The name of the latter award is in reference to Carlyle Smythe, the agent who managed Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's tour of Australia in 1920/21, who Doyle refered to as "an admirable cobber".

The 'Passengers' Log' is a wonderful publication and I try hard (but sometimes fail) to contribute an article to every issue. 

This particular article is a continuation of a series so I wanted to get them tied together in one place.

The dancing miners and their photographer

The first article identified who the photographer of the 'Dancing Miners' photograph was: Henry Hermon Grose. By extension, this confirmed that the photograph was taken as the location / mine of LAKESIDE near Boulder in Western Australia.

Where did you get that hat?

The second article identified a second photograph of the 'Dancing Miners', including its path in exhibitions, and where the original now resides (Switzerland). It also identified several photographs of 'Official Staff, Lakeside' who match those in the 'Dancing Miners' photograph.

Sherlock in Boulder 1903-1904

A third blog post looks at the world of Sherlock in the Kalgoorlie-Boulder area at the time Sherlock was returning and the miners were 'dancing'. This post describes where the Strand Magazine could be purchased, and the local performances of William Gillette's play "Sherlock Holmes". 

A Scandal in Pharmacopeia - Canadian Holmes 2026

I have a new article out, published in 'Canadian Holmes', the magazine of the Bootmakers of Toronto, and edited by Mark Alberstat. This article arose from my intrigue at finding a small booklet of Sherlock Holmes stories published by 'Flint Laboratories'. As a pharmacologist and drug discovery person, I wanted to know more about the drug being advertised. Was there any actual connection between the drug and the canon? No, not really - it's not clear to me what the advertising pitch would have been.

I've become quite interested in Sherlock books published as an advertising ploy, and using Holmes/Watson in advertising medicines. I'm currently working on a follow-up article on another interesting advertising campaign.

As always, I'm posting the original submitted article here (like a scientific pre-print).

A Scandal in Pharmacopeia

Matthew D. Hall 

The image of Sherlock Holmes has constantly been used to promote a wide range of products. Less common is the publication of stories from the Canon as the basis for an advertising strategy, or to act as promotional materials. 

Yet this is exactly the approach taken by the pharmaceutical company Flint Laboratories in the 1970s. Using the publisher/printer The Benjamin Company (of Madison Avenue, New York), Flint Laboratories arranged for a collection of five stories to be published under the title "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson". The stories selected were The Five Orange Pips, The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor, and The Red-Headed League. 

The cover of the small orange volume (measuring only 4 by 5 1/2 inches) is dominated by a close shot of Sherlock Holmes wearing a deerstalker and with a calabash pipe held to his mouth, leaning in to Dr. Watson wearing a bowler hat. On the rear cover of the paperback orange volume is the logo and details of Flint Laboratories (Division of Travenol Laboratories, Morton Grove, Illinois). The publications are undated, but De Waal dates them at 1970 (Note 1), and the National Library of Medicine holds a copy of 'The Five Orange Pips' from this series and also cites 1970 (Note 2). Flint Laboratories published each of the five stories separately, with each identical in appearance, but containing a single story and the title of the story on the cover. One remarkable aspect of these Flint Laboratories publications is that nowhere do they name the author of the stories (Arthur Conan Doyle), and there is no acknowledgment of obtaining permission from the copyright holder to publish the stories. 

 

What were Flint Laboratories advertising? Inside the front cover it is stated:

"Elementary, my dear Holmes, the drug of choice is... SYNTHROID® (sodium levothyroxine)."

"Quite, my dear Doctor. And investigation will prove no pure synthetic is more economical to your patients."

Presumably the booklets were distributed to physicians to influence prescribing behavior. There are a series of rules regarding the promotion and advertisement of prescription medications, imposed by regulators, and through attempts at self-regulation by professional bodies (Note 3). It is unlikely that a free booklet of Sherlock Holmes stories would concern regulators in the 1970s.

Synthroid is the brand (or trade name) for a medicine used to treat thyroid hormone deficiency (hypothyroidism) (Note 4). The active ingredient in the drug is sodium levothyroxine (also called L-thyroxine, or T4), a thyroid hormone produced by healthy humans in the thyroid gland. This article will refer to the medication by its generic name (thyroxine), as is standard practice in science, unless specifically describing the product produced by Flint Laboratories named Synthroid. 

Thyroxine contains four iodine atoms (hence T4), and one of these is removed in the thyroid to produce the triiodothyronine (T3) that regulates nearly all biological process including growth and development, metabolism, body temperature, and heart rate. As such, Synthroid contains synthetic hormone identical to the natural hormone that is low in patients with hypothyroidism, and lifelong treatment is often curative as it supplements the low level of L-thyroxine in patients with hypothyroidism (an analogy may be made to using insulin to treat diabetes). 

Thyroxine is an important medication: it is the treatment of choice for hypothyroidism and in 2022 the drug was the fourth-most prescribed in the US with more than 80 million prescriptions (Note 5). 

Before thyroxine - from the late 1880s onwards, patients with hypothyroidism were treated with animal thyroid extracts (that contained L-thyroxine along with many other things) (Note 6). At the same time, proponents of the rejuventating effects of 'organotherapy' reported that injections of liquid extracts of dog or guinea pig glands or testicles had positive effects in older men (Note 7). These sensational experiments distracted from important work in the late 1880s and early 1990s showing that sheep's thyroid improved patients with hypothyroidism. The work led to the conclusion that a specific agent within thyroid material may be identified that can be given to humans as a treatment. 

L-thyroxine was first discovered as a natural hormone from hog thyroid glands by Edwin Calvin Kendall (Mayo Clinic) in 1914, and it was first chemically synthesized and reported in 1927 in Britain. The ability to create pure chemical thyroxine identical to the natural hormone, and the creation of its salt in 1955, allowed for a tablet form to be developed to treat patients with hypothyroidism. It should be noted though that thyroid extract was also used by many even after L-thyroxine was available (Note 8).

The wording attributed to Watson and Holmes in the advertisement highlights the choice of Synthroid as the best, and there is a good reason for that advertising angle. Flint Laboratories were not the only manufacturer of thyroxine, but they were the major supplier, and were strongly positioning their product as the most reliable. At the time though (1970s and 1980s), no generic versions of thyroxine were available, because of a quirk in the history of drug regulation (Note 9). In 1962, the FDA created new requirements for the information a company would need to present to the FDA to seek approval of that drug- such as safety studies, and how much drug was absorbed. When these new requirements were created, the pharmacopeia of older existing drugs were 'grandfathered', meaning that the companies could continue manufacturing and selling their pre-1962 drugs without further modern evaluation, and there were still hundreds of such drugs in the 1970s. Fundamentally, Synthroid had never been approved in the modern sense, never satisfied modern drug approval standards, but were allowed to continue selling based on meeting the standard at the time the drug was introduced. 

For a drug with a market as large as hypothyroidism, there was a strong push from generic manufacturers to be allowed a seat at the table, and here's where the age of the drug benefited Flint Laboratories. For any drug no longer protected by patents, a generic manufacturer may produce an equivalent product to the approved commercial material - that is the definition of generic - it is identical to the brand drug, works the same, and allows market competition. However, to demonstrate the equivalence of a new generic to the FDA, the manufacturer must show that the generic drug is absorbed the same way as the original commercial product (Synthroid). However, because Synthroid was so old, that data was never generated, and the FDA could not compel Flint Laboratories to do so! So Flint owned their market through a quirk of the system, and were not compelled to generate data that would erode their market dominance. 

In the 1980s, Flint Laboratories received significant pressure to release data showing their product was superior ("no pure synthetic is more economical to your patients") and they paid a University of California San Francisco (UCSF) group to perform the experiments. The data produced by UCSF showed all thryoxine products were equivalent, but Flint Laboratories suppressed the data - and that was a scandal in pharmacopeia (Note 10). Legal wrangling ultimately allowed the data to see the light of day (SEVEN YEARS after it was submitted for publication), and in 1997 the FDA announced throxine was a "new drug" requiring modern standard testing, and generated independent data. During the dispute with UCSF, Flint Laboratories became part of Boots, but the purpose of the Sherlock Holmes Synthroid booklets was to reinforce to prescribers that their product was superior and others should not be used. More aggressive business practices followed, and this received significant press attention.

So important and widely used was Synthroid that Dorothy L. Sayers based the plot of a short story on the medicine. Sayers embraced toxicology in her stories, including in the Wimsey-less 'The Documents in the Case' written with Robert Eustace, where the chemical difference between the natural and synthetic forms of muscarine allow murder to be detected (Note 11). In the 1933 short story 'The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey', Wimsey hears of of a woman taken to Spain by her physician husband in order to remove her from here suspected paramour (Note 12). In Spain she becomes exceedingly unwell. A mutual acquaintance who visits Spain tells Wimsey “her face {was} white and puffy, the eyes vacant, the mouth drooling and a dry fringe of rusty hair clinging to a half-bald scalp.” These are the classic features of advanced hypothryoidism (called myxedema), and Wimsey recognizes this. He travels to Spain to remove the woman from her husband's brutality. As her doctor, the husband had withdrawn his wife's thyroxine medication, allowing her hypothyroidism to recur in a severe form.

Wimsey himself perfectly summarized hypothyroidism and the benefit of thyroxine when wrapping up the case:

"Alice Wetherall is one of those unfortunate people who suffer from congenital thyroid deficiency. You know the thyroid gland in your throat — the one that stokes the engine and keeps the old brain going. In some people, the thing doesn’t work properly, and they turn out cretinous imbeciles. Their bodies don’t grow, and their minds don’t work. But feed ’em the stuff, and they come absolutely all right — cheery and handsome and intelligent and lively as crickets. Only, don’t you see, you have to keep feeding it to ’em, otherwise, they just go back to an imbecile condition."

Did the Sherlock Holmes promotional booklets influence doctors? It seems unlikely. Was there a Sherlockian in the Flint Laboratories marketing division? Where were the booklets distributed? Print numbers do not appear to be available, but only a very small number of copies have been sighted through book vendors, or in library catalogs. Being cheaply made, and passed out freely, they were likely discarded readily.

Perhaps the biggest question that any Sherlockian reader will be asking is why the five stories were selected from among the canon. There are no plot elements in the five stories that relate to treatment of patients. On the other hand, The Adventure of the Creeping Man (published 1927) is connected to the history of Synthroid. In the story, Holmes is called in to examine the case of the 61-year-old Professor Presbury, whose behavior has changed since a foreign trip and following his engagement to a much younger woman. Holmes observes Presbury's odd primate-like behavior first-hand, when Presbury moves about on all fours, climbs the outside of his home, and provokes the family dog to the point that it attacks him. Holmes examines the treatment that Presbury has been taking, and finds that it is extracted from a primate (the langur). While not explicitly stated, it is implied that in seeking youthful energy to match his impending bride, he was being treated with an extract of primate gland or possibly testicle. 

In the case of Presbury, rather than using animal gland extracts to treat hypothryoidism, he was seeking to turn "himself into a younger man". Given the element of terror and the Jekyll & Hyde analogy in the story, it is perhaps understandable that Flint excluded the story from its promotional plans. Still, it seems like an opportunity lost for a perfect intersection between the canon and pharmacology, and these booklets may be the only example of the stories from the canon being used to promote a pharmaceutical product. 

References

Note 1. Ronald Burt De Waal, The Universal Sherlock Holmes, Third Edition, Toronto: Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library, 1994. 

Note 2. Retrieved from National Library of Medicine catalog www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov , NLM catalog 9918843281306676.

Note 3. David Grande, Limiting the Influence of Pharmaceutical Industry Gifts on Physicians: Self-Regulation or Government Intervention?, J Gen Intern Med, 2009, 79-83 

Note 4. George J. Kahaly, 70 Years of Levothyroxine, Springer, 2021

Note 5. Retrieved from www.singlecare.com/blog/news/prescription-drug-statistics/ 

Note 6. George J. Kahaly, Therapeutic Use of Levothyroxine: A Historical Perspective, in 70 Years of Levothyroxine, Springer, 2021

Note 7. Phillipe L. Salvais, The case of Professor Presbury: a literary digression on the controversial birth of endocrinology, J Med Biogr, 1998, 149-151

Note 8. Stefan Slater, The discovery of thyroid replacement therapy. Part 3: A complete transformation, J Roy Soc Med, 2011, 100-106

Note 9. Editorial, Thyroid Storm, J Am Med Assoc, 1997, 1238-1243

Note 10. Jacqui Wise, Research suppressed for seven years by drug company, Br Med J, 1997, 1145

Note 11. Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace, 1930, Ernest Benn

Note 12. Dorothy L. Sayers, The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey, in Hangman's Holiday, 1933, Gollancz