inspired a young Edinburgh medical student Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) to base the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes on Joseph Bell. Further reading Kirkup, J 'Bell, Benjamin (1749–1806)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 References External links 1749 births 1806 deaths People from Dumfries 18th-century Scottish medical doctors Scottish anatomists Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons Scottish surgeons Scottish medical writers Alumni of the University of Edinburgh 18th-century Scottish farmers Burials at the Canongate Kirkyard Members of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh Founder Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Enlightenment scientists 19th-century Scottish medical doctors Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh 18th-century surgeons 19th-century Scottish farmers