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Doyle's family (Conan was his middle name, and it was only later
in life that he began to use it as his surname) sent him to Jesuit
boarding schools to be educated, and he later entered the
University of Edinburgh Medical School in 1881.
One of his professors at the university was Dr. Joseph Bell, who
became the model for Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. It was Bell who
drummed into Doyle's head the importance of using his innate
powers of observation to help him deduce the nature of a
patient's affliction.
Shortly after, his father fell ill, and Doyle was forced to become
the breadwinner for the family. He worked for a time as a ship's
doctor, then opened his own medical practice near Portsmouth.
In his spare time he did more writing.
After the death of his son in World War I, Conan Doyle became
interested in spiritualism. He was convinced that it was possible
to communicate with the dead, and his views led to a certain
amount of ridicule from more mainstream society.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died on July 7, 1930, and is buried in the
churchyard at Minstead, Hampshire. He can rightly be credited
with helping create the literary genre of the detective story.
Though Edgar Allen Poe's Dupin predates Sherlock Holmes, it was
the Holmes' stories that solidified in the public mind what a good
detective should be.
https://www.britainexpress.com/History/bio/doyle.htm
BY DAVID ROSS, EDITOR