MAY 22

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. For two years, he served as a doctor on the ships Hope and the SS Mayumba, then in 1882, set up his own medical practice in Portsmouth, England. Because he had so few patients, Doyle passed the time between appointments by writing creative stories. And that is how Sherlock Holmes was created!

Doyle also had great interest in botany, and studied it at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. He was a talented athlete who payed on amateur soccer and cricket teams. Doyle like to play golf and was also an avid boxer. You see many of these interests sprinkled into the stories of Sherlock Holmes.

In 1900, Doyle volunteered to be a doctor in a war being waged between the United Kingdom and Dutch Colonies in South Africa. He wrote about the experience, and is part of the reason why he was knighted by King Edward VII in 1902. Doyle died on July 7, 1930, at the age of 71. In his life he created 300 works of fiction, 1,063 essays and articles, 106 poems, and 12 plays.

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