If the speaker’s sharp senses and rapid-fire delivery of his deductions sound like Sherlock Holmes, it is for good reason: he was the real-life inspiration for the fictional detective. Dr. Joseph Bell, a professor of surgery, prolific writer, and a relative of Alexander Graham Bell, enthralled his young student Arthur Conan Doyle with his uncanny and uncommon yet in his words “elementary” talents. According to Bell, who often chanted, “Use your eyes, use your eyes” in his classes, the most important skill was a simple differentiation between passive sight and active assessment.
