Gardner D L, Macnicol M F, Endicott P, Rayner D R T, Geissler P
J Med Biogr. 2009 Feb;17(1):2-7. doi: 10.1258/jmb.2008.008004.
This paper recalls the early life of Dr Arthur Conan Doyle when his writing centred briefly on India. The significance of a young female skeleton given to the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1879 is reviewed. Morphometric and genetic evidence is provided to show that the skeleton originated in the Andaman Islands. It is suggested that Doyle saw it during his undergraduate or early postgraduate years, leading him to introduce an Andaman Islander into his novel The Sign of the Four, published in 1890. Like his inspiring predecessor Walter Scott, Doyle wrote of India but did not visit the country: both authors learned indirectly of the Indian Raj and the Indian Medical Service. Doyle knew of the convict colony established after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 at Port Blair, capital of the Andamans, but the reason he chose an Islander to commit murder in London has, until now, remained contentious.
本文回顾了亚瑟·柯南·道尔博士早年的生活，那时他的写作曾短暂聚焦于印度。文中对1879年赠予爱丁堡皇家外科医学院博物馆的一具年轻女性骨架的重要性进行了审视。形态测量学和遗传学证据表明，这具骨架原产于安达曼群岛。据推测，道尔在本科或研究生早期见过这具骨架，这促使他在1890年出版的小说《四签名》中引入了一名安达曼岛民。和他富有启发性的前辈沃尔特·司各特一样，道尔写过关于印度的作品，但并未去过该国：两位作家都是间接了解到英属印度和印度医疗服务体系的情况。道尔知道1857年印度兵变后在安达曼首府布莱尔港建立的罪犯流放地，但他选择让一名岛民在伦敦实施谋杀的原因，至今仍存在争议。
