Sherlock Holmes and Opium

Sherlock Holmes the famous detective from Baker Street, so well written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the late 1800’s was a brilliant detective that could solve any case no matter how difficult. These books were widely read and are still read today, there have been movies made and television programs, featuring Sherlock Holmes and his escapades. One of the attributes, which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave this famous detective was playing a violin and smoking opium.

During some of Sherlock’s most difficult cases his way of pondering over case and all the facts he had collected, was by smoking opium. In his favorite chair with his smoking jacket on and then sitting alone playing his violin he could arrive at the perfect answer to solve the case. After his opium induced filtering of the facts from the case, Sherlock Holmes along with his trusted companion and friend Dr. Watson would solve the case.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote more than one Sherlock Holmes book in which Sherlock frequented opium dens in order to catch the criminal he was after or to solve the case.

While these books are fictional and so is Sherlock Holmes, the books do depict the truth, because it was during these years when businessmen, cowboys and others were able to find an opium den in which to smoke opium. These opium dens were not sparse, there were as many of these as there were saloons and people did not look down upon a person that smoked opium in dens as an addict.