As mentioned in the Overview section above, Conan Doyle was an

admirer of Oliver Wendell Holmes. In 1858, Holmes had written, in his

Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, “Tell me about Cuvier's getting up a
megatherium from a tooth … so all a man's antecedents and possibilities
are summed up in a single utterance…." This recalls what Schopenhauer
had written in 1851, “Just as a botanist recognises the whole plant from
one leaf and Cuvier constructed the entire animal from one bone, so
from one characteristic action of a man we can arrive at a correct
knowledge of his character." (Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. II, §118)
These assertions are echoed in "The Five Orange Pips", in which
Sherlock Holmes declared, “As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole
animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has
thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to
state all the other ones, before and after."

Readers of the Sherlock Holmes stories have often been surprised to

discover that their author, Conan Doyle, was a fervent believer in
paranormal phenomena, and that the logical, skeptical character of
Holmes was in opposition to his own in many ways.

The word "Sherlock" has entered the language to mean a detective or

used sarcastically if someone states the obvious.

It must be noted that, in Holmesian deduction, it is important to attempt

to eliminate all other possibilities, or as many as possible. This requires
quite a bit of practice to reach. Watson attempts several times to
perform Holmesian deductions, and even gives his explanations.
However, he fails to recognise other equally probable circumstances,
and is wrong on almost every count.

The Hiatus

Holmes fans refer to the period from 1891 to 1894 the time between
Holmes' disappearance and presumed death in "The Adventure of the
Final Problem" and his reappearance in "The Adventure of the Empty
House" as "the Great Hiatus". It is notable, though, that one later story
("The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge") is described as taking place in
1892.