Medical accuracy

[mightymads]

This post on tumblr made me wonder why ACD used a term which seems to be incorrect:



ACD wouldn't make Watson incompetent deliberately because Watson in the stories is never a buffoon. On the contrary, he is a fine professional and a reliable friend.

So I had two guesses: either ACD forgot the proper term since by 1927, when Shoscombe Old Place was written, ACD hadn't been practicing medicine for a long while. Or he did use the correct term which by now became obsolete.

Not long ago I had an opportunity to cooperate with Recently Folded, who betaed my story for Holmstice and advised me on medical matters which I included into the plot. I asked them about the femur, and here's what they replied:

I also did a bit more searching (like any Holmes fan, I do love a puzzle) and found this British Medical Journal article from 1899 that refers to the upper condyle of the femur, so I think it was a legitimate term during ACD's medical training and career: <https://books.google.com/books?id=vf7WNBHL5eQC&pg=PA1206&dq=historical+medical+%22upper+condyle%22+femur&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjt396AwvLeAhUiHzQIHeNTB9IQ6AEIKzAA#v=onepage&q=historical%20medical%20%22upper%20condyle%22%20femur&f=false>. Reading the text, it describes a knee surgery, so it's clearly a substitution for either the medial or lateral (not sure which). So the bone in SHOS is the knee end of a thigh bone and Arthur was being medically accurate (or rather, by the time he wrote it, a bit outdated but that's typical of doctors who are well into their careers).

So ACD did use the correct if somewhat dated term at the time he was writing SHOS. Watson is by no means incompetent.