Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 - 1930) was a British physician and writer. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he studied medicine. At the university he met Joseph Bell, who lectured there. Bell had a very special ability: he looked at people he didn't know and had never seen before and could tell what they had just done. He could even tell what their profession was. This impressed Arthur Conan Doyle so much that he gave this ability to his famous character, the detective Sherlock Holmes. Doyle had a medical practice, but he liked to write stories in his spare time. In 1887, with 28 years, he published the first story with Sherlock Holmes "A Study in Scarlet". It is said that Sherlock Holmes' friend, Doctor John Watson, had a similar life to Arthur Conan Doyle himself.