1. He mastered the art of observation
While people like us go on with our lives and not pay attention to tiny details from our surroundings, Sherlock Holmes did the opposite and took his time looking at all the details from the environment. Holmes believed that whether a clue was small or big, it could easily hide in plain sight and get missed if you didn't look for it. Sherlock also took into consideration what kind of details were important and unimportant, intentionally choosing which ones to remember and what to discard later on. Sherlock Holmes has been known for his phenomenal powers of observation, which really was not quite easy and took a lot of hard work and a lot of paying attention to things.
2. He mastered the science of deductive logic
Deductive reasoning or deductive logic, is the process of reasoning from one or more premises to reach a logical conclusion. Sherlock has made a habit of observing the dress and attitude of his clients or suspects, noting skin marks or tattoos, the state of their shoes, and paying close attention to personal items such as hats, pipes and walking sticks. In the book A Scandal in Bohemia, Holmes was able to deduce that Watson had a clumsy and careless servant girl, when he noticed that Watson's shoes had six almost parallel cuts, which meant someone had been carelessly scraping round the edges of the sole to remove crusted mud from it.
3. He was a strong physical fighter
In the book The Yellow Face, Holmes was described as possessing above-average physical strength, and was capable of greater muscular effort. In the Adventure of the Speckled Band, Dr. Roylott taunted Holmes by bending a fire poker in half to which Holmes responded by just laughing at him, picking up the steel poker and straightening it out again. Holmes was also an adept bare-knuckle fighter, having regularly boxed while he was still in university and regarded by many as one of the finest boxers of his weight in London. He also knew Baritsu, a Japanese martial art which was a combination of Jujitsu, Boxing and Cane Fencing, and was able to wrestle and fling Moriarty to his death in the Reichenbach Falls.
4. He blocks out useless information
While Sherlock possesses the ability to remember details and store them in his memory palace, he also has the unusual skill to forget information he deems useless. Sherlock treats his mind like a hard-drive, only retaining or storing the significant things, while intentionally forgetting the insignificant ones. In A Study in Scarlet, Watson was shocked at Sherlock's ignorance of the solar system. Sherlock told him he learned about it when he was little but has done his best to forget it, as it didn't have any significance to his life or his practice.
5. He was obsessive in his investigations
Sherlock could spend minutes to hours in his laborious investigations to which he forms a solid basis for his brilliant edifices of deduction. He always thought that the little things are infinitely the most important and has often mentioned that even a trivial fact may start a train of reflection in the mind. Sherlock believed that the data gathering part of his job was the most tedious but the most necessary, as no one could presume anything out of nothing. Holmes has often criticized Watson for his lack of observation to obvious things, and has often insisted that people see but never truly observe.
6. Holmes practiced Forensics before it was even invented
Holmes' technique in detection, can be identified as the forerunner of modern forensic sciences. In The Adventure of the Silver Blaze, Sherlock used footprints, shoe prints, carriage wheel tracks and bicycle tracks to identify actions at a crime scene. In The Adventure of the Resident Patient, Holmes used tobacco ashes and cigarette butts to identify criminals. Holmes was able to intelligently observe from a lot of things to be able to detect crime, such as exposing a fraud through typewritten letters, observation of gunpowder residue on a victim, and use of a fingerprint to free an innocent man.
7. He wasn't scared of anything
Sherlock Holmes has been described by his sidekick Watson, as generally quite fearless. He objectively surveyed horrific brutal crime scenes, but remained unfazed and was more concerned about what clue to look for. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes didn't allow superstition, or any grotesque situations to scare him, and maintained that there were no such things in this world. In the Adventure of the Sussex Vampire, a Mr. Ferguson went to Baker Street to tell Holmes that an ex-wife turned vampire might have been sucking their son's blood. Holme's agreed to look into the case but before he and Watson had set off for Sussex, Holmes had already worked out what was going on and told Watson, that it had nothing to do with vampires.
8. He was a master of disguise
Sherlock has proven to Watson countless times that he was a master of disguise, as all of his outfits have made him completely unrecognizable. Holmes has appeared as a seaman, a common loafer, a bookseller, a plumber, an Italian priest, an old woman, and a clergyman. In The Adventure of the Dying Detective, Holmes starved himself for three days to fake a contracted illness, and has convinced the criminal, the inspector, and even Watson that he was dying from an infectious disease. In A Scandal in Bohemia, Watson was compelled to remark that the stage had lost a fine actor, and that science had also lost an acute reasoner, when Holmes became a specialist in crime.
9. He was efficient despite being eccentric
While Holmes can be dispassionate and cold, he was excitable and animated during investigations. He also had a lot of eagerness for showmanship, often keeping his methods unrevealed until the last possible moment to impress the audience. Watson had described Holmes as a Bohemian in his habits and lifestyle, and said he had cat-like love of personal cleanliness but would put his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, or his unanswered correspondences transfixed by a jack-knife into a wooden mantelpiece. Watson also said that his room was stacked with bundles of manuscript and Holmes would know which paper to find when he thinks it was going to help with a case.
10. He intentionally learned about other fields
Most of the time, Holmes' intelligent conclusions were derived not only by the data he collected, but also by his enormous store of fascinating information contained in what he calls his "mind palace". Sherlock has often cautioned Watson to be careful about filling his mind with junk or trash, and that he should only choose to learn things that helps him in his career. Shortly after meeting Holmes in the A Study in Scarlet, Watson was able to assess that Holmes had literally no knowledge in literature, philosophy and astronomy, but had a feeble knowledge in Politics and some practical knowledge in Geology and British Law. Holmes, although unsystematic has an accurate knowledge of the human anatomy, and has a profound knowledge in Chemistry making him a very efficient detective.
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