Saturday, April 04, 2009
The Fido Test!
So I've been reading the first Sherlock Holmes adventure: A Study In Scarlet. At one point Holmes, to test an unknown pill - a suspected poison - feeds half of the pill in question to an old, ailing terrier belonging to the landlady at 221B Baker Street. The dog dies. He fed the dog poison... intentionally. Sherlock Holmes is then certain of the pill's poisonous properties and moves on to solve the case. The dog was described as sick, and, apparently, the landlady was hoping to put it out of its misery but still, I am disturbed by this development in the story. Maybe it was a common practice of the day. Maybe they viewed it as a humane ending to the dog's life. I don't know. All I know is that Sherlock Holmes poisons puppies!
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2 comments:
Oh, and the next story, The Sign of Four, opens with Sherlock shooting up. Watson asks irritatedly, "...morphine or cocaine?"
Coke... Sherlock Holmes was shooting coke.
I've just started to re-read the novel and have just come to this part with the dog..
As much as I love Holmes I really cannot understand how he could be so cruel, regardless of how ill the dog was.
It's definitely very disturbing.
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