Sherlock Holmes as Science Fiction (WL)

In November 1887, the world was introduced to a detective who used science and his keen powers of observation to solve a mysterious crime. While the techniques that Sherlock Holmes employs to solve the murder portrayed in his debut Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, are familiar to us today, at the time the story was published, investigative methods used by police forces consisted almost entirely of gathering witness statements, establishing alibis, and extracting confessions.

The use of scientific evidence as a recognized tool for identifying criminals was not a reality until the second decade of the twentieth century. The founder of this new scientific discipline was a French physician who, inspired by Sherlock Holmes, made the “science fiction” of Doyle’s detective into a reality.

Join Bradley Harper, a retired Army pathologist and published author, for a one-hour presentation on the evolution of forensic science and how Sherlock Holmes inspired the use of objective evidence in the never-ending hunt to determine “whodunnit.”