Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (BMJ 26 july 1913)

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is an article published in the The British Medical Journal on 26 july 1913.


Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The British Medical Journal (26 july 1913, p. 192)

In addition to receiving, as usual, a very hearty welcome at their first meeting on Friday from them special hosts — who this year are the Mayor and Corporation of Brighton's twin sister, Hove — the Representatives of the Association were on Sunday the recipients also of a very graceful courtesy on the part of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Assembling to the number of over a hundred, in the early afternoon, they drove out in motor coaches as his guests to take tea at Windlesham, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's residence near Crowborough. It was an admirable way of spending Sunday afternoon, for not only was the weather at its best, but the route going and returning traverses over fifty miles of the most beautiful part of Sussex. Just before reaching Crowborough, the ubiquitous boy scout jumped into view, and pointed out the way, and on arrival at Windlesham, about 4 p.m., they found awaiting them Sir Arthur and Lady Conan Doyle, a small house party, and several medical men practising in the neighbourhood. After exchange of greetings in the houses move was made into the grounds, where tea was served on the lawns, the guests being subsequently shown, in a combined billiard room and lounge, a collection of curios more or less closely associated with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's literary labours. Before the party broke up, the hospitality received was appropriately acknowledged by Dr. C. H. Milburn of Hull and Dr. Stanhope Eves. The former made a happy allusion to the fact that most medical men have on innumerable occasions received refreshment and entertainment at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's hands, though not quite in the same fashion, and the vote of thanks for which he called was acclaimed with cheers. In the course of his response Sir Arthur Conan Doyle observed that he had the warmest feelings towards his old profession, and that the opportunity of renewing acquaintance with his old colleagues and entertaining them at tea was a source of great pleasure to him. Alluding to his former work as a medical man, he recalled that once in America the chairman at a dinner at which he was present remarked that it was a sinister fact that although Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was supposed to be a doctor no living patient of his had ever been seen. Apart from affording the Representatives a pleasant afternoon, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's hospitality has a special interest of its own. In the eyes of the world Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is solely one of the great novel writers of the day, and Crowborough is a long way from Brighton; yet on an occasion when Representatives of the medical profession are assembled together at the latter place for the purpose of consulting how best to promote the interests of medicine and to protect its adherents from legislative and other attacks, he has elected to express his sympathy with them in a very direct manner. There are a good many men who have left the profession of medicine to attain eminence in other walks of life, but not all of them acknowledge the claims that it still has upon them in a correspondingly altruistic fashion.