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It is widely held by scholars of the works of Conan Doyle that the main model for Sherlock Holmes was Joseph Bell (1837 – 1911). He was a doctor and a lecturer and lived in Edinburgh, Scotland and that Doyle was taught by Bell and later became his assistant, for a period of time <ref>Jacks, p 12</ref>. Bell believed that observation was essential for correct diagnosis. This made him a very successful doctor and surgeon. He later applied his system of close observation to difficult criminal cases. The deductive method so famously used by Sherlock seems to have been based on the methods developed by Bell. Like the great detective, he had an uncanny ability to identify a strangers’ occupation, home, and even past, based on simple clues. Bell was also involved in some famous criminal cases and was regularly consulted by the police. In the 1890s he was consulted by the London Police in relation to the most famous case in British criminal history. This was the Jack the Ripper case, when a serial killer brutally murdered five women in LondoLondon. However, Bell did not have many any of the eccentricities of Holmes and was a rather respectable figure, who was Queen Victoria’s personal medic when she visited Scotland<ref>, Scarlett, Earle P. "The Old Original: Notes on Dr. Joseph Bell Whose Personality and Peculiar Abilities Suggested the Creation of Sherlock Holmes." Archives of internal medicine 114, no. 5 (1964): 696-701</ref>.