Friends of the Library talk by the Doctor who invented the world’s most famous detective
Tuesday 8 July 2008 at 7:30pm for 8pm
Library Meeting Room
Ground Floor, Reid Library Building
The University of Western Australia
Dr Des Gurry: The Doctor who invented the world’s most famous detective
Sherlock Holmes was a super sleuth from Victorian to Georgian times, vast in knowledge, observation and deduction. The many stories about him are written by his colleague Dr.John Watson, MB ChB Edin. who is a thinly disguised version of the author, Dr Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, MB ChB Edin.
As an undergraduate he had as teacher Dr Joseph Bell, famous for observation and diagnostic skill. Student Doyle was a a ship’s surgeon on a whaler and then went to West Africa. After graduation he was a GP, and studied Ophthalmology in Germany. In Britain patients did not visit so he sat and wrote stories. These brought fame and fortune, and enmeshed him.
During the South African War, Doyle found that disease was more lethal than bullets. As a War Correspondent he defended the British Army and later wrote ‘The Great Boer War’ giving an account of errors. In Britain he killed off Sherlock Holmes and wrote medieval military romances which did not survive and Sherlock Holmes was revived a decade later. The Great War was a disaster for him, as for so many, and he began to contact the souls of the dead, in Spiritualism.
About the Speaker
Des was born in Edinburgh and came to Australia aged five. He attended school and university in Melbourne graduating in Medicine in 1956. In 1959 he was a junior resident at PMH, where he became engaged to an RPH nurse. Des travelled to London as a ship's surgeon in 1961 and worked in the East End for three years, to pass the London Membership of the Royal College of Physicians. He practised paediatrics in the Children's Hospitals of Sheffield & Liverpool, and then Cleveland, USA. In 1968, Des returned to PMH to become Senior Lecturer in Child Health of UWA and Physician at PMH - General, with a particular interest in certain treatable metabolic disorders. He retired in 1998, classed by PMH colleagues 'Emeritus Consultant'.
Please note that the ground floor entrance to the Library, nearest to the carpark, will be open from 7.30pm - 7.45pm.
Members: Free
Non-members: $5.00 donation
