“Now we have the Sherlock Holmes’ test” [STUD]
From the moment we first meet Sherlock Holmes, we know he feels at home in a laboratory.
When Watson asked Stamford who the person was who said he was looking for comfortable rooms at a reasonable price, Stamford answered, "A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital."
He goes on to describe Sherlock Holmes:
“Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes—it approaches to cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects. To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the same readiness. He appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge.”
And of course, over the course of his time with Watson, Holmes continued pursue knowledge via experiments.
The opening scene of "The Naval Treaty," for example, finds Holmes at work on a chemical investigation at his side-table:
A formidable array of bottles and test-tubes, with the pungent cleanly smell of hydrochloric acid, told me that he had spent his day in the chemical work which was so dear to him.
“Well, have you solved it?” I asked as I entered.
“Yes. It was the bisulphate of baryta.”
“Well, have you solved it?” I asked as I entered.
“Yes. It was the bisulphate of baryta.”
In "A Case of Identity," Holmes's attention was so taken by his experiments that he missed the point of Watson's question about his progress on the case:
A formidable array of bottles and test-tubes, with the pungent cleanly smell of hydrochloric acid, told me that he had spent his day in the chemical work which was so dear to him.
“Well, have you solved it?” I asked as I entered.
“Yes. It was the bisulphate of baryta.”
And we should never forget the self-experimentation inflicted upon Watson and himself that Holmes undertook in "The Devil's Foot."
Holmes was a creature of habit, as Watson observed. And he simply could not kick himself of the habit of experiments.
Meanwhile, at Baker Street Elementary, the boys discover that if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate...
Baker Street Elementary follows the original adventures of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, as they and their friends work through the issues of elementary school in Victorian London. An archive of all previous episodes can be viewed at www.bakerstreetelementary.org.
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