Joseph Bell

Joseph Bell, JP, DL, FRCS (Edinburgh 2 December 1837 – 4 October 1911) was a Scottish physician and professor at the Edinburgh Infirmary at the University of Edinburgh. He was a forerunner of forensic medicine and his analytical method influenced the writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who met him in 1877 while studying medicine, when modeling his famous Sherlock Holmes character.

He was born into a family with precedents in the field of medicine, among which stood out Sir Charles Bell, known for the description of Bell's palsy.

Joseph Bell's tomb in Edinburgh.

Bell was a high-energy man, an amateur poet, sportsman, and bird lover. He accurately studied aspects such as the way of walking, the accent, the hands and the clothing of a person and with this information he could determine many things. Thus, he used to encourage his students to recognize their patients as a left-handed shoemaker or as a retired sergeant who had served in Barbados through accurate observation of the individual and logical deduction. He often astonished both his own patient and his students by making such statements, sometimes even before the patient said anything.

The character depicted in the US television series House M.D. is believed to be based on Joseph, consistent with the character's cynical and short-tempered nature and his incredible ability to diagnose complex cases. There is also an assumption that the fictional Dr. Gregory House is a medical representation of Sherlock Holmes, just as Dr. Wilson is analogous to assistant John H. Watson.

Bell was aware that Doyle had taken him as a reference for his detective work and was wearing it to the gala. He always maintained an interest in his alter ego of his and even prefaced one of the Sherlock Holmes books.