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Joseph Bell ALS

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:500.00 USD Estimated At:0.00 USD
Joseph Bell ALS
"WINNERS WILL BE NOTIFIED AFTER THE AUCTION ENDS BY THE AUCTIONEER ONCE ALL BIDS HAVE BEEN PROCESSED TO DETERMINE THE WINNER FOR EACH LOT."
Rare autograph letter signed by Scottish physician and forensic expert for the British Crown, Joseph Bell. Single page, penned on an Octavo leaf, undated. Bell writes in full: “Dear Miss Alyce, / The enclosed is all I can get for you. But I trust it is very nice. He has taken to a typewriter but you see he furnishes nicely my Autograph, / Joseph Bell.” Arthur Conan Doyle met Joseph Bell at the medical school of the University of Edinburgh in 1877 while studying to be a doctor. By the end of his second year Bell had selected him to serve as an assistant in his ward. This gave Conan Doyle the opportunity to view Dr. Bell's remarkable ability to quickly deduce a great deal about a patient. Dr. Bell observed the way a person moved. The walk of a sailor varied vastly from that of a soldier. If he identified a person as a sailor he would look for any tattoos that might assist him in knowing where their travels had taken them. He trained himself to listen for small differences in his patient's accents to help him identify where they were from. Bell studied the hands of his patients because calluses or other marks could help him determine their occupation. In a letter to Bell in 1892, Conan Doyle wrote, “It is to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes. I do not think that his analytical work is in the least an exaggeration of some effects, which I have seen you produce in the outpatient ward.” Letter shows light soiling else near fine condition.