10 Crazy Moments in the Original Sherlock Holmes Stories

Sherlock Holmes is the most famous detective of all time. Today, he has become such a part of the fabric of civilization that when someone sarcastically calls you Sherlock, you know exactly what they mean. As an enduring set of classic stories, they are so beloved their fans talk about them as if they are historical records. However, since they came from another time and sought to show us daily life, they also give us a clue into the ignorance and crazy ideas of the time.

Related: 10 People Stranger Than The Fictional Characters They Inspired

10 Holmes’s Racist Conversation with a Black Gangster

In “The Adventure of the Three Gables,” Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are enjoying their day in their sitting room when a large black man bursts into the room. The man immediately begins to threaten them, warning them away from taking a case they have not even been offered yet. The man refers to the detective as Masser Holmes, and after making a comment about Holmes giving him lip, Holmes responds that he hardly needs any.

Later on in the story, a police constable refers to the man, Steve Dixie, as “a big n-word”—and yes, the full n-word was printed in the original text. While Holmes does not use this language, he also does nothing to correct it, and his racially charged comments directed at the man are something most fans cringe about today.

Although there is no evidence to back it up, some fans are certain this story was written by someone else. Among other things, they point to the fact that Conan Doyle also wrote “The Adventure of the Yellow Face.” In “Yellow Face,” a young black girl from a previous marriage with a dead husband is lovingly embraced by the woman’s new, white English husband when he discovers her.^[1]

9 The Time a Man Temporarily Becomes a Monkey

In “The Adventure of the Creeping Man,” Sherlock Holmes is tasked with solving a problem that isn’t exactly a crime but an attempt to avoid a social scandal. The prestigious professor of a fictional university in England has been behaving bizarrely, and his daughter and future son-in-law want to solve it and put a stop to it. The professor has been observed at night walking on all fours, climbing up to people’s windows, and even being attacked by his dog for no apparent reason during these wanderings.

In this case, Sherlock doesn’t really solve much of anything; he just stands witness to the professor behaving really weirdly. After being really odd, the professor starts teasing his dog and is nearly killed. After inspecting the suspicious envelopes the professor had been receiving, Holmes explained that the man had been injecting himself with monkey serum in order to make himself more youthful. This strange serum made the man act like a monkey, taking away his own sense and humanity temporarily. Even for the time, this is a pretty silly idea and is obviously complete nonsense.^[2]

8 Phrenology, a Debunked Pseudo Science, Is Referenced Regularly as Fact

In Sherlock Holmes, one thing that you will regularly hear references to is the size and shape of people’s skulls and how this can be used to glean things about their intelligence or personality. Holmes rarely mentions these things himself, but other characters talk about it at length, especially Dr. Mortimer. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Dr. Mortimer admits that he covets Sherlock Holmes’s skull and gets very excited about its shape. It is simply taken as fact in the Holmes universe that phrenology is real.

The unfortunate thing here is that the study of human skulls to figure out someone’s characteristics, known as phrenology, is a bunch of nonsense. This makes re-reading the stories a century or more later a bit awkward. This is especially so if you are introducing them to kids who you want to know real science and not pseudoscience that has long since been disproven. To make matters worse and more awkward, phrenology was often flippantly used in the stories in a way that would sound rather racist to us today ^[3]

7 Some Sherlockians Believe in a Ghostwriting Conspiracy Theory

One theory about Sherlock Holmes that you will see over and over again in the introductions is a theory by Mr. D. Martin Dankin that several of the Sherlock Holmes stories were not actually written by Arthur Conan Doyle. This theory is quite well-known among Sherlockians, and it is never more popular than the story mentioned above in this list, “The Adventure of the Three Gables.” The theory also includes “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone” and a couple others, but those do not hold the same importance in the eyes of the theorists as they do not make Homes look racist.

The main crux of the theory is that Holmes makes very racist remarks to Steve Dixie, the boxer, which is very much unlike Sherlock Holmes. It is also unlike Conan Doyle, who wrote “The Yellow Face” and urged The British government against racism. In further un-Holmes fashion, he also leaves a woman who he suspects of being robbed with her lawyer instead of staking it out with Watson and outs a maid who is an obvious spy instead of observing her. Finally, he insults her based on her class, indirectly threatening her life with “Wheezy people don’t live long, Susan.”^[4]

6 Holmes’s Death Had Fans So Upset They Grieved Him Like a Real Person

At the very height of his popularity, when Conan Doyle could have named his price for another Sherlock Holmes story, he decided to kill the famous detective in the story “The Final Problem.” This was not because he hated Holmes but because the character was taking up an undue amount of his time and imagination. This left him with little to no time to write any of the historical or other fiction works that he wanted to write.

However, the reaction turned out to be far more than he ever could have imagined. People were so moved by the loss of the famous detective that they actually wore black armbands out in public in order to grieve him as if he were real. Finally, perhaps moved by all the complaints or possibly needing to refill his pocketbook, Conan Doyle returned Sherlock Holmes to us in “The Adventure of the Empty House.”

Since no one had truly seen Holmes die or examined a body, it was easy enough to plausibly return him to life. This showcased the incredibly intense passion of the fans, who today are so enamored with the stories that they are famous for talking about them as if they are historical records.^[5]

5 Devil’s Foot Root Powder Is Fictitious, a Departure from Most Stories

After Conan Doyle brought Holmes back, he started to experiment with some different types of stories and settings. This was partly because he was running out of ideas, as he had been reluctant to bring him back in the first place, but also because he wanted to be less predictable. In “The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot,” we have some people mysteriously lose their minds, and one dies. The story is made all the more dramatic because the local vicar seems to suspect the work of the devil. After another person dies in the same way, Holmes discovers that the original murderer was killed in the same way by someone else to avenge them for the other people they killed.

Holmes decides to compound a felony, which is fairly typical for him in cases like these, but the true departure from the usual stories is that the solution is fanciful nonsense. It seems to have been entirely made up. The people are killed with a powder called devil’s foot root, which makes people hallucinate, have horrible feelings of doom, and then usually die. The problem is that you cannot properly guess this whodunnit by playing along and guessing because the powder in the story is a complete and utter fabrication of Conan Doyle’s mind.^[6]

4 Conan Doyle Greatly Overplays the Dangers of the Lion’s Mane Jellyfish

In “The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane,” Sherlock Holmes is walking on a beach when he comes upon a man who is already near death. The man yells out the words, “Beware the lion’s mane,” which the local police and most others consider pure delirium. The usual pattern occurs where Sherlock Holmes hunts for clues, unveils a social scandal or two—but keeps them quiet—and eventually solves the case. The weird thing about this story, however, apart from it being narrated by Holmes, is that the culprit is not a person at all.

In the end, it turns out that the perpetrator is a jellyfish known colloquially as the lion’s mane jellyfish. In the story, the jellyfish is said to have tentacles that can reach 50 feet (15 meters), and its poison easily kills anyone who gets a good swing from its tentacles. The problem is that this is a gross overestimation of its dangers. While it is true that the lion’s mane is a giant jelly that can have an 8-foot (2.4-meter) body with tentacles reaching even farther than the 50 feet described in the book, it is also not a particularly dangerous jelly. People can have allergic reactions in rare cases, but even then, the sting isn’t usually fatal.^[7]

3 The Vampire Story Is Based on Venom Sucking Pseudoscience

In “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire,” Holmes is tasked with solving a problem where someone thinks that even the possibility of vampirism may exist. A woman has been seen twice sucking blood from her baby’s neck, and the father has sequestered her from the baby in response. The two of them are estranged, and the father is seriously worried about the child. In the end, it turns out that the mother was sucking the baby’s blood in order to suck out the poison that someone else had used in an attempt to kill the child.

It makes for a fun story, but the entire thing is based on nonsense. The fact of the matter is that you cannot suck poison out of a wound. Once the poison has entered the body, it moves far too quickly through the bloodstream to take it out. What you actually will need is some kind of antidote. Trying to suck venom out will, at best, do sighing. At worst, you could end up poisoning yourself as well.^[8]

2 The Time Holmes and Watson Are Accessories to an Escaped Murderer’s Freedom

In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Watson goes down to Baskerville Hall with the new heir, Henry Baskerville, in order to protect him from a nebulous theater. While they are on their way to the hall, they find out that an escaped murderer is loose on the moor. Later on in the story, they find out that their own servants are helping the convict because the convict is the brother of the butler’s wife. At first, Watson and Baskerville go out and try to capture the convict but fail.

In the morning, his butler berates him for going after his brother-in-law, who “has enough trouble already,” despite the fact the man is known for being a murderer who sticks at nothing. With an assurance from his butler that this murderer will do no more harm to anyone, Watson and Baskerville agree to simply leave the matter alone. Holmes later jokes that he should arrest them for this, but it is not like he could do so without implicating himself. This is because he also knew the murderer was there all along while he was hiding out on the moor and didn’t do anything about it.^[9]

1 Holmes Stops Watson from Helping a Dying Man Because He’s a Blackmailer

In “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton,” we learn that the namesake of the story is a horrible blackmailer who has been at it for probably decades in the Holmes universe. He had ruined lives when people did not meet his price; however, he is not known for being a man of violence of any kind. After failing to negotiate with the villain, Holmes and Watson decide to simply break into his house and rob him of his papers.

Holmes and Watson are close to breaking into the safe when the man himself enters the room, and they have to hide. While they are waiting for him to finish smoking, a woman enters the room under the guise of selling him dirt and then shoots him several times. After the woman escapes through the window, Watson, being a doctor, immediately tries to get up to help. However, Holmes grabs him and restrains him. Watson caves immediately, and they set about opening the safe and burning the contents. They then leave the door locked behind them, sealing the man’s fate.

This is odd for Holmes, as in “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches,” he does nothing to stop Watson from saving the life of a man who tried to kill them with his dog and almost got killed by it instead.^[10]