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124 pages

English

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Praise for The Science of Sherlock Holmes

"Holmes is, first, a great detective, but he has also proven to be a great scientist, whether dabbling with poisons, tobacco ash, or tire marks. Wagner explores this fascinating aspect of his career by showing how his investigations were grounded in the cutting-edge science of his day, especially the emerging field of forensics.... Utterly compelling."
—Otto Penzler, member of the Baker Street Irregulars and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop

"E. J. Wagner demonstrates that without the work of Sherlock Holmes and his contemporaries, the CSI teams would be twiddling their collective thumbs. Her accounts of Victorian crimes make Watson's tales pale! Highly recommended for students of the Master Detective."
—Leslie S. Klinger, Editor, The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes

"In this thrilling book, E. J. Wagner has combined her considerable strengths in three disciplines to produce a work as compelling and blood-curdling as the best commercial fiction. This is CSI in foggy old London Town. Chilling, grim fun."
—John Westermann, author of Exit Wounds and Sweet Deal

"I am recommending this delightful work to all of my fellow forensic scientists.... Bravo, Ms. Wagner!"
—John Houde, author of Crime Lab: A Guide for Nonscientists

"A fabulously interesting read. The book traces the birth of the forensic sciences to the ingenuity of Sherlock Holmes. A wonderful blend of history, mystery, and whodunit."
—Andre Moenssens, Douglas Stripp Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Missouri at Kansas City, and coauthor of Scientific Evidence in Civil and Criminal Cases
Preface.

Acknowledgments.

1 Dialogue with the Dead.

2 Beastly Tales and Black Dogs.

3 A Fly in the Ointment.

4 Proving Poison.

5 Disguise and the Detective.

6 The Crime Scene by Gaslight.

7 A Picture of Guilt.

8 Shots in the Dark.

9 Bad Impressions.

10 The Real Dirt.

11 Notes from the Devil.

12 A Voice in the Blood.

13 Myth, Medicine, and Murder.

Glossary.

Bibliography.

Index.

Sujets

Forensic Science

Droit et juridique

Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes

Law

Informations

Publié par	Turner Publishing Company
Date de parution	07 décembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781118040126
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0900€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Preface
Acknowledgments

CHAPTER 1 - Dialogue with the Dead
CHAPTER 2 - Beastly Tales and Black Dogs
CHAPTER 3 - A Fly in the Ointment
CHAPTER 4 - Proving Poison
CHAPTER 5 - Disguise and the Detective
CHAPTER 6 - The Crime Scene by Gaslight
CHAPTER 7 - A Picture of Guilt
CHAPTER 8 - Shots in the Dark
CHAPTER 9 - Bad Impressions
CHAPTER 10 - The Real Dirt
CHAPTER 11 - Notes from the Devil
CHAPTER 12 - A Voice in the Blood
CHAPTER 13 - Myth, Medicine, and Murder

Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Copyright © 2006 by E. J. Wagner. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada

Illustration credits: Pages 111-114 from Engravings Explaining the Anatomy of the Bones, Muscles, and Joints by John Bell (London, 1794); page 115 from Report of the Case of John W. Webster: Indicted for the Murder of George Parkman by George Bemis (Boston, 1850); page 116 from How to Read Character: A New Illustrated Hand-Book of Phrenology for Students and Examiners with a Descriptive Chart by Samuel R. Wells (New York, 1873); page 117 (top) from The Identification Facilities of the FBI by John Edgar Hoover (Washington, D.C., 1941); page 117 (bottom) by Ira Bradley and Company for Warren’s Household Physician: For Physicians, Families, Mariners, Miners; Being a Brief Description, in Plain Language of Diseases of Men, Women, and Children by Ira Warren and A. E. Small (Boston, 1891); page 118 from the Catalog of Medical and Surgical Works appended to A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology by Henry C. Chapman (Philadelphia, 1893).

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Wagner, E. J.
The science of Sherlock Holmes : from Baskerville Hall to the Valley of Fear, the real forensics behind the great detective’s greatest cases / E. J. Wagner. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-471-64879-6 (cloth) ISBN-10: 0-471-64879-5 (cloth)
1. Forensic sciences—History. 2. Criminal investigation—History. 3. Holmes, Sherlock (Fictitious character) I. Title.
HV8073.W34 2006
363.25—dc22 2005022236

To Bill, my beloved husband and tech support
Preface
I first met Sherlock Holmes on Mosholu Parkway in the Bronx during the 1950s. At the time I was suffering through the torments of junior high school, my misery relieved only by the combined English and social studies class taught by a singularly humane teacher named Benjamin Weinstein.
It was Mr. Weinstein’s engaging habit to invite his students to bring lunch to the park when the weather permitted. We would perch on logs and on the grass while he entertained us by reading aloud from work with which he felt we should be familiar. I always went.
He read with a fine but gentle authority. He did no funny voices. He did not perform strained pantomimes. He just provided a conduit that allowed the author to speak to us.
He read tales from Mark Twain and tales from Damon Run-yon. Toward the end of autumn, when it was growing cold and most of the leaves had fallen, he opened an unfamiliar book that had a dark blue cover and read:

On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.
It was the opening of “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” The next day I was at the library to obtain the collected works.
There’s been a great deal written about the intense appeal of the Sherlock Holmes tales. I suspect it lies largely in the contrast between the emotional excitement of wild adventure and the reassuring intellectual control represented by Holmes. As I write this in 2005, when superstition threatens to seduce the civilized world with its dangerous embrace and science is dismissed in some quarters as merely an amoral discipline that humanity is free to abandon, a literary hero who possesses both intellect and a sense of ethics is particularly compelling.
Sherlock Holmes may have been fictional, but what we learn from him is very real. He tells us that science provides not simplistic answers but a rigorous method of formulating questions that may lead to answers. The figure of Holmes stands for human reason, tempered with a gift for friendship. (He may claim to be merely a brain, but he betrays an intense emotional core when he says to the villain in “The Adventure of the Three Garridebs,” “If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.”) Holmes has an incisive mind, a warm heart, and an artistic dimension—he skillfully plays the violin. No wonder I and so may others are entranced.
Over the years I acquired rather more copies of the Canon than was sensible, and from time to time I would indulge myself, read a bit, and wonder if there was a way of incorporating my weakness for Holmes with my job of lecturing on the history of crime and forensic science. I did present a program called “The Science of Sherlock Holmes: True Cases Solved by Conan Doyle,” but that was about the author rather than the Great Detective. I kept toying with ideas, but basic sloth made it difficult to decide how to combine Holmes with criminal history.
And then one cold February afternoon while I was waiting for a loaf of bread to rise, I received an e-mail asking if I would be interested in writing a book that would use the Great Detective’s adventures as a jumping-off point to discuss forensic science during the Victorian age. There could be chapters on anatomy, toxicology, blood chemistry, and a variety of other very complicated things. I could see at once that this endeavor would involve a prodigious amount of work.
It would mean contacting old friends who were specialists on fingerprinting, trace evidence, poisoning, and a number of other esoteric subjects and begging them for information. It would require detailed reading of old autopsy reports, crumbling newspapers, and lecture notes. It would mean convincing my husband that he would be delighted to spend weeks scanning fragile old pictures, formatting my messy typing, and compiling a bibliography that promised to be sizable. (My secretarial skills are sadly lacking.)
It would mean spending many hours poring over ancient medical tomes, dusty trial transcripts, and yellowing letters and papers, tracking down the details of crimes centuries old, isolated in my workroom with only hundreds of antiquarian books and Dr. Watson, our black Labrador Retriever, for company.
So of course I said yes.
Acknowledgments
Profound thanks to Mark Beneke, Ph.D., for details on insects; Robert A. Forde, for background on both the British legal system and the pronunciation of British names; Ernest D. Hamm, who can trace anything; Lee Jackson, for insight into Victorian life; Professor Erwin T. Jakab, for translations from the French; Professor Gernot Kocher, for information about Hans Gross; Sigmund Menchel, M.D., former chief medical examiner of Suffolk County, for much-needed help in analysis of the drowning at Tisza-Eszlar, as well as many other cases; James J. Maune, Esq., and William Nix, for information on the law; Andre A. Moenssens, Douglas Stripp Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Missouri at Kansas City, for background on legal photography; Stephen S. Power, my editor at John Wiley & Sons, for his patience and sensitivity and a really good idea; Marcia Samuels, for amazingly precise and considerate copyediting, and William R. Wagner, for both emotional and technical support. Without them this book would not exist. Any mistakes are mine.
I am deeply gratef