Interesting stuff! Although not in any way a parallel, there was a curious
period in Brazilian literary history, in the 19th Century, when would-be
Brazilian authors decided that because some of the brilliant European
writers had suffered from tuberculosis, therefore tuberculosis was a way to
enhance the mind's imaginative powers, so quite a number of young Brazilians
deliberately contracted tuberculosis in the hope the affliction would
release their literary power.







_____

From: SherlockHolmesSocietyofIndia@...
[mailto:SherlockHolmesSocietyofIndia@...] On Behalf Of pinaki
roy
Sent: 02 April 2008 16:49
To: sherlockholmessocietyofindia@...
Subject: [sherlock holmes society of india] Was Holmes Autistic?



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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