LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Asperger’s in the Holmes Family

Eric L. Altschuler

� Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Abstract I show that Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock Holmes’

brother) is a formally described case of Asperger’s syn-

drome a half century before Asperger’s description of the

syndrome. Further, given the genetic similarity and links

between the brothers stated by Sherlock, this also cinches

the same diagnosis for Sherlock.

Keywords Asperger’s syndrome � History of medicine �Medicine in literature

In ‘‘The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans’’ (Doyle

1917) Sherlock Holmes describes his older brother Mycroft

thus: ‘‘There has never been anything like it before, nor

will be again. He has the tidiest and most orderly brain,

with the greatest capacity for storing facts, of any man

living. The same great powers which I have turned to the

detection of crime he has used for this particular business.

The conclusions of every department are passed to him,

and he is the central exchange, the clearing-house, which

makes out the balance. All other men are specialists, but his

specialism is omniscience. We will suppose that a minister

needs information as to a point which involves the Navy,

India, Canada and the bimetallic question; he could get his

separate advices from various departments upon each, but

only Mycroft can focus them all, and say offhand how each

factor would affect the other. They began by using him as a

short-cut, a convenience; now he has made himself an

essential. In that great brain of his everything is pigeon-

holed and can be handed out in an instant.’’ In ‘‘The

Adventure of the Greek Interpreter’’ (Doyle 1893) Sherlock

Holmes speaks similarly of his brother and also notes his

highly regimented and unchanging daily routine and that

Mycroft is a co-founder of the Diogenes Club that requires

that ‘‘No member is permitted to take the least notice of

any other.’’ In this story Holmes also mentions for one of

only two times family besides Mycroft noting that they

come from a family of country squires except for their

grandmother whose brother was the French painter Emile

Jean-Horace Vernet (Vernet) (1789–1863). Vernet’s father

Carle Vernet (1758–1835), grandfather Claude-Joseph

Vernet (1714–1789) and great-grandfather Antoine Vernet

(1689–1753) were also painters. Thus we know within the

context of the Holmes canon a great–great–great grandfa-

ther of Sherlock and Mycroft. (If Asperger’s genes are ever

reliably known, and there are amenable descendents of

Vernet, it would be interesting to see if Horace Vernet had

such DNA. For completeness I mention the other mentions

of Sherlock Holmes’ family: (1) Mycroft is mentioned

briefly in ‘‘The Final Problem’’ and ‘‘The Adventure of the

Empty House.’’ (2) In ‘‘The Adventure of the Norwood

Builder’’ a physician named Verner who was a distant

relative of Sherlock Holmes bought Watson’s medical

practice, apparently for more than it was worth.)

S. Holmes (and Doyle) appreciated the centrality of

genetics in the makeup of humans: The Hound of the

Baskervilles turns on the resemblance of a character to the

portrait of an unappreciated ancestor. Further, indeed, in

the Greek Interpreter Sherlock Holmes notes that both his

and Mycroft’s deductive powers are hereditary and ‘‘in the

E. L. Altschuler (&)

Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation,

New Jersey Medical School, University Hospital,

150 Bergen Street, Newark, NJ 07103, USA

e-mail: eric.altschuler@umdnj.edu

E. L. Altschuler

Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics,

New Jersey Medical School, University Hospital,

150 Bergen Street, Newark, NJ 07103, USA

123

J Autism Dev Disord

DOI 10.1007/s10803-013-1781-3

blood.’’ Many have suggested a diagnosis of Asperger’s

syndrome for Sherlock, based, for example, on his typically

(but not always) solitary and impersonal ways, yet intense

single-minded powers of concentration and exhaustive

study of seeming minutia such as soils and shoe tracks.

With genetics now making the case elementary, I submit

that more than a half-century before Hans Asperger’s

description (Asperger 1943), the syndrome ran in the

Holmes family affecting both brothers. The differential

diagnosis for Asperger’s includes developmental delay or

disorder (there is no evidence for this in either brother, in

particular no evidence of language delay), and schizotypal

and schizoid personality disorders. Neither brother exhibits

the magical thinking of schizotypal personality disorder.

Both brothers show schizoid tendencies, however, both can

be most engaged and engaging when necessary.

Individuals even further back in history have had As-

perger’s—e.g., it has been shown rather convincingly for

British physicist William Cavendish (Sacks 2001). The

prevalence of autism is now about 1 % in children (http://

www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html), but its prevalence

in the past is not particularly well-known. Interestingly, as

a reviewer pointed out, examining literary texts may be a

way to study its prevalence in the past. For example, one

could conceive of a project to look at all novels and stories

published in given years and ascertain for the prevalence of

autism and Asperger’s.

Conflict of interest The author has no financial or other conflicts.

References

Asperger, H. (1943). Die ‘‘Autistischen Psychopathen’’ im Kindes-

alter. Archiv fur psychiatrie und nervenkrankheiten, 117,

76–136.

Doyle, A. C. (1893). The adventure of the Greek interpreter in TheMemoirs of Sherlock Holmes (London). http://en.wikisource.org/

wiki/The_Greek_Interpreter.

Doyle, A. C. (1917). The adventure of the Bruch-Partington plans in

His Last Bow (London). http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_

Adventure_of_the_Bruce-Partington_Plans.

Sacks, O. (2001). Henry Cavendish: An early case of Asperger’s

syndrome? Neurology, 57, 1347. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Horace_Vernet (Accessed September 27, 2012).

J Autism Dev Disord

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