Amateur Holmesian Scholarship

Approximately 8 – 15% of the population is left handed, with more men than women being so. We are somewhat of a rare breed, but according to scientific research we also have many advantages.

At the beginning of ‘The Yellow Face’, Holmes finds that his prospective client has left his pipe. One of his conclusions is that the man is left handed, and in demonstration he refers to Watson’s pipe, why not his own? Whilst not in any means any proof, it did start to he ball rolling. Is Sherlock Holmes left handed, and knowing it is a heredity trait is Mycroft also?

There is a common belief that left handers are more intelligent or more creative than there right handed counter parts, and there is some evidence for this from the various studies people have done on the brain.

According to theory, right handed people process information in a linear sequence. One thread of thought must be complete before next whereas left handers use a visual simultaneous method where lots of threads are processed at the same time to their conclusion. In simpler terms – a right handed person can only process one piece of information at time, so theoretically thinks slower, whereas a left hander could process say four pieces of information at time.

It is all starting to sound a bit Holmes, Watson is often baffled by Holmes’ thought patten even when he has the same information he cannot see the reasoning – as a right hander he needs to complete one thread before the next can be processed and linked, Holmes being left handed has simultaneously thought of all the threads.

The theory further goes to state that right handed people look at a problem by breaking it down into all it’s pieces and analysing each piece, left handers look at the whole problem and solve it by using a patten (‘synthesis’). Which is certainly something Holmes does, rather than take each piece of evidence individually he looks at all the evidence in context.

One piece of reasoning that stands out from the rest is that left handed people have a greater advantage in one on one combat sports, we know that Holmes is very skilled in various arts of one to one combat (fencing, boxing etc…) and if he is a leftie then he certainly has a great advantage over his opponents – the advantage of surprise.

David Richardson in his article titled ‘A Realistic 221b?‘ spent some time piecing together the likely arrangement of the famous sitting room using the canon and other sources. He speculates that Holmes actually sat on the left, meaning that the fireplace would be in easy reach for the left handed who happens to store things there.

… Holmes’ observation that Watson had gotten himself a bit muddy. In explaining this deduction, he remarks “… on the inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it …”. From this we deduce that Watson is sitting with the fireplace on his right. The next cue comes when Holmes hears the sound of the King’s carridge: ” ‘Yes’, he continued, glancing out the window … .” Thus, Holmes, who of course is sitting opposite Watson, is sitting by the window. These two cues put together serve to fix the relative orientations of the (front) window, Holmes, Watson, and the fireplace, which are reflected in our floorplan. (If 221B is on the east side of Baker Street, then the fireplace wall will be the northern wall. The suggestion in The Cardboard Box that the morning sun glares off the buildings opposite favors this overall orientation.

It’s an interesting area of speculation and I do believe that the Baker Street Journal has at least two references to people talking about Holmes’s handiness, this year I’m in a better financial situation so I might fork out the cash to purchase their CD-ROM.