Dear Sherlockians,

Let me, in response to Tim Symond's point regarding Sherlock Holmes's supposed
autism, paste below an interesting 1994 essay by Michael Maher.

Pinaki Roy


Was Sherlock Holmes Autistic?
by A. Michael Maher
23 June 1994
Oliver Sacks, Temple Grandin and Sherlock Holmes -- an unlikely mixture.
Oliver Sacks is the neurologist with a national, no, international reputation.
Sacks is an intense, scholarly, medical man who specializes in the mysterious
workings of the mind. You may remember his book Awakenings, which was made into
a popular movie. Temple Grandin, holder of a Ph.D. in animal sciences,
entrepreneur, university professor, author and inventor is one of the most
remarkable of that class of individuals who "suffer" from autism. And finally,
to complete this unlikely trio, we have Sherlock Holmes, truly brilliant, the
greatest detective of all time, a pathfinder and certainly different from his
fellow man.

Sacks recently published an article about Temple Grandin and autistic people
in New Yorker magazine (December 27, 1993). He mentioned that, although autism
has clearly been a condition that has always existed, it was only identified in
1940. Autism was defined in terms of the characteristic displayed by autistic
children. When we think of these attributes, we most often picture a non-verbal,
self destructive child sitting silently in isolation, head ceaselessly banging
against a wall. Less envisioned by the layman, but also characteristic, is a
mental aloneness, a certain lack of emotion, an ability to visualize to an
extraordinary degree and the appearance of strange, narrow preoccupations --
highly focused, intense fascinations and fixations.

Notice, when autism is spoken of, we automatically think of children, often
dysfunctional children. But where do autistics go when they grow towards
adulthood. Do they disappear? Perhaps evaporate! No one seems to be aware of
functioning adult autistics. Since the mental range of autistics ranges from
retarded to exceptional, and further that the condition is congenital and with
one until death, it is clear that many of these autistic adults have learned to
adapt, to function in the normal world. Focus on this truism was recently
brought about by the autobiography Emergence: Labeled Autistic by Temple
Grandin.
Sacks writes of Temple's description of her childhood and how far she was
removed from normal. He describes her world as one of sensations heightened,
sometimes, to an excruciating degree. In her book she speaks of her ears, at the
age of two or three, as helpless microphones, receiving everything, irrespective
of relevance, at full, overwhelming volume ... she showed an intense interest in
odors and a remarkable sense of smell ... she soon developed an immense power of
concentration, a selectivity of attention so intense that it could create a
world of its own. She wrote, "People around me were transparent ... Even a
sudden loud noise would not startle me from my world." Of course, Sherlock
Holmes' ability to concentrate is well known and was described by Watson as
extraordinary (The Sign of Four), complete (The Valley of Fear), composed (The
Adventure of the Lion's Mane), greatest (A Case of Identity) and several times
as intense (The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire,
The Reigate Squires, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Adventure of Black
Peter).
Uta Frith, an investigator of autism, writes of "Sherlock Holmes with his
oddness, his peculiar fixations -- his little monograph on the ashes of 140
different varieties of pipe, cigar and cigarette tobacco (The Boscombe Valley
Mystery, The Sign of Four and A Study in Scarlet). ... his clear powers of
observation and deduction, unclouded by the emotions of everyday people, and the
extreme unconventionality that often allows him to solve a case that police,
with their more conventional minds, are unable to solve." Of course, The
Cardboard Box outlines another odd Sherlockian study, that of human ears.
Holmes' obsession with the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus is mentioned in The
Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans. And I'm sure that you can think of many
more examples of rather odd Sherlockian fixations on obscure subjects.
[Additional monographs include those on Manuscript Dating (The Hound of the
Baskervilles), on 160 Different Ciphers (The Adventure of the Dancing Men),
on Seventy Five Perfumes (The Hound of the Baskervilles) and Tracing of
Footsteps (The Sign of Four) -- Future monographs contemplated by Holmes include
Typewriters and their Relationship to Crime (A Case of Identity), on Dogs Use in
Detective Work (The Adventure of the Creeping Man), and on Malingering (The
Adventure of the Dying Detective)].
Temple Grandin, according to Sacks, constantly runs 'simulations' as she calls
them, in her head. Temple, in her business, works to improve and make more
humane, packing house procedures. She visualizes the animal entering the chute,
and can envision the animal from all angles, from above, from the sides, she can
even become the animal and feel what it is like to enter the chute.


Can anyone doubt that during the preliminaries to The Cardboard Box Sherlock
became Dr. Watson, actually entering his mind and discerning his every thought?
All autistics, according to Temple, are intensely visual thinkers. They are
non-emotional, that is, if they see a beautiful mountain scene they recognize it
as beautiful, but the emotional "lift" is missing. Ever get a chill or strong
patriotic feeling as The Star Spangled Banner is played? Yes? You're not
autistic. If Sherlock were autistic, the mystery of his non-involvement in
sexual activities is explained. An autistic person can appreciate, admire and
respect someone -- but true love is out of the question. A so called lonely
bachelor's life becomes not only easy, but preferred.
Holmes loves music and lays the violin to help concentrate.

The canon mentions his violin in no less than thirteen of Watson's accounts.
The violin is certainly the autistic's instrument -- look at the bow, back and
forth, back and forth. Even with a Stradivarius at his disposal, Sherlock was
not a great or even memorable musician. He would have been mechanically flawless
with perfect pitch, but with little or no "touch." Perhaps the combination of
perfect pitch and drive for rhyme and repetition explain the typical autistic's
fascination with music. It is said that the great ground breaking Hungarian
composer, Bartok, was autistic. Creativity, the ability to proceed with ordinary
events in a truly innovative manner is the autistic's long suit.
Every true Sherlockian is a bit troubled and more than a little disturbed by
the master's well noted cocaine use [The Five Orange Pips, The Man with the
Twisted Lip, The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter, A Scandal in Bohemia,
The Sign of Four and The Yellow Face]. Relax! Autism can and must be treated
with drugs. These standard drugs were not available in the Victorian 1890s, but
cocaine and opium were. Temple Grandin outlines, in her autobiography, how easy
it would have been for her to have become "hooked" on downers. And only the
intervention of her prescribed medication (50 mg Tofranil daily) may have saved
her from a turn to illicit drugs. Curiously, Temple points out that her mental
abilities were more acute before she began her medication regime. She describes
her medication as "...adjusting the idle screw on a car's carburetor. Before
taking the drug, the engine was racing all the time. Now the engine runs at
normal speed." Is there any doubt that Sherlock
used drugs to rest his ever racing mind? And remember, with the Victorian age's
lack of today's regulated prescription drugs, cocaine and opium were legal, used
in many patent medicines, and even prescribed by the medical profession of the
day.

Let us examine Sherlock's early life. According to Baring-Gould's account of
Sherlock's childhood, Sherlock's parents removed him from his home and neighbors
when he was about one year old and the family lived in Pau, France until he was
five. Was this early escape to France necessary because Sherlock was nearly
dysfunctional and the family was too ashamed to permit their friends and
neighbors to learn of their secret? Then, after a brief stay of two years back
in England, the family returned to the continent to tour Europe. The start of
this extended four year trip coincided with the time Sherlock would have entered
into formal schooling. As the family flitted from city to city, conventional
schooling would have been out of the question and a tutor would have been
employed. Did the family sense that Sherlock was not ready for school and were
they putting off the day when this painful fact would have to be faced?
Baring-Gould holds that when Sherlock finally did enter a formal school, he
did not distinguish himself, and in fact, did not fit in and was removed from
school to be again tutored on an individual basis. S. C. Roberts, who authored
The Personality of Sherlock Holmes, agrees that young Holmes "... being
temperamentally unfitted for the normal activities of public school life ..."
was tutored at home. Bernard Davis in, Was Holmes a Londoner?, points out that
Holmes' boxing and fencing vocations are consistent with private tutoring rather
than the team sports normally associated with English public schools. An
additional indication of his possible autism. And then there is college. Still
referring to Baring-Gould, Sherlock went to college, probably Oxford, for two
years, not making friends, except for Victor Trevor (The Gloria Scott), and
staying close within himself. A degree took three years under normal
circumstances in the 1870s. Sherlock quit Oxford, and entered a
University (The Musgrave Ritual), probably Cambridge, for three years. He was a
loner, always in the chemistry laboratory, regarded as highly intelligent by his
fellow students. In Sherlock's own words (The Gloria Scott) he tells Watson, "I
was never a very sociable fellow ... always rather fond of moping in my rooms
and working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed with men
of my year." And he took a total of five years to finish a three year degree. In
fact, there is disagreement over whether he received a degree at all. This
apparent failure in school was not because he was incapable, but because he was
different, significantly different. Certainly this chain of events is consistent
with autism.
Sacks describes his initial visit with Temple Grandin. "She sat down with
little ceremony, no preliminaries, no social niceties, no small talk ... She
spoke well and clearly, but with a certain unstoppable impetus and fixity. A
sentence, a paragraph, once started, had to be completed, nothing was left
implicit, hanging in the air." Grandin is quoted as saying "My work is my life.
There is not much else." Does all this remind you of anyone? Of course, none
other than the Master.
As autism varies in the depth of its effect on a person, and as its incidence
rate may well be hereditary, we should expect Mycroft, Sherlock's brother, to
share a number of the master's autistic-like characteristics. We should not be
surprised when Holmes says of his elder brother, "Mycroft has his rails and he
runs on them. His Pall Mall lodgings, the Diogenes Club, Whitehall -- that is
his cycle." (The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans). And, of course,
Mycroft is a bachelor.
Autistics are notoriously humorless. Sherlockians have written regarding
Sherlock's humor, or lack thereof. After a scholar called Holmes humorless, one
Sherlockian counted over one hundred times in which the canon records a chuckle
or laugh by the master. But examine a sample of what caused the Sherlockian
chuckle. Typically, Sherlock was laughing at Lestrade's ineptness or Watson's
lack of understanding. We have Watson's personal opinion of the Sherlockian
humor expressed in The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone. Watson reports "...Holmes
seldom laughs ... but he got as near it as his old friend Watson could
remember." Try to think of a single witty saying by Sherlock Holmes or a play on
words.

Even without looking you feel uncomfortable with Sherlock as a standup
comedian, don't you.
Holmes could feel for his fellow human, but in a logical non-emotional way. He
sets free the criminal who seems justified and who, in Sherlock's opinion, has
acted in a logical manner. And apparently feels no guilt. Sherlock often is
judge, jury and executioner. Again, Temple sees that world and finds it lacking,
in her estimation. She has singlehandedly changed the treatment of animals prior
to slaughter. Holmes undoubtedly changed the face of detective work for all
time. Curiously, he was not able to influence an inflexible legal system, so he
refashioned the rules in his own private way. This inability to conform to what
may be considered non-logical rules is still another characteristic of the
autistic personality.
Now, let us have a little quiz. The following was said of or by whom, Temple
Grandin or Sherlock Holmes?:
1. "This quality of memory seemed prodigious ... in its detail."
(Sacks, The New Yorker, Dec. 27, 1993; Jan. 3, 1994)
2. "He/She has absolute pitch ... a precise and tenacious musical memory."
(Sacks, The New Yorker, Dec. 27, 1993; Jan. 3, 1994)
3. "the visual parts of his/her brain and those concerned with processing a
great mass of data simultaneously are highly developed."
(Sacks, The New Yorker, Dec. 27, 1993; Jan. 3, 1994)
4. "I am the only one in the world" (in my professional area).
(The Sign of Four; Emergence: Labeled Autism)
5. "(My profession) "... is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be
treated in the same cold unemotional manner."
(The Sign of Four)
6. "... his/her face had regained that ... composure which made so many regard
him/her as a machine rather than a man/woman."
(The Crooked Man)
7. "... he/she had built up a vast library of experiences over the years."
(Sacks, The New Yorker, Dec. 27, 1993; Jan. 3, 1994)
Perhaps I can ask you, members of the Six Napoleons, to answer for yourselves
the question as to Sherlock's possible autistic core. Tell me, if you had to
name the most "Sherlock like" member of the original Star Trek cast and then you
named the most "Sherlock like" Star Trek, The Next Generation cast member -- who
would you think of? How may of you immediately thought of Spock and Data.
Certainly you are not surprised to learn that surveys of autistic people show
they overwhelmingly identify with Spock and Data -- and yes, most "high level"
autistics are Trekkies.
The focus of this paper is not to "prove" that Sherlock Holmes was autistic,
but to hold out the strong possibility. Sherlock certainly operated on a
different and higher plane than his contemporaries, his powers of concentration
were immense, his detachment legendary, his facility to visualize astounding.
The fact that these adjectives are a perfect fit for Temple Grandin does not
prove Sherlock's autism. However, less powerful observations are made to "prove"
less likely features of the master's life.





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