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In at least one story (A Study in Scarlet, perhaps, in Watson's pen-portrait of his then-new fellow lodger) there is also mention of Holmes occasionally finding

In at least one story (A Study in Scarlet, perhaps, in Watson's pen-portrait of his then-new fellow lodger) there is also mention of Holmes occasionally finding solace from boredom in morphine, which as a derivative of the then-common opium might likewise have been novel and "high-tech" to a Victorian audience. I think that was also dropped early on, though; while I haven't recently reread the Holmes tales or indeed anything of Doyle's, I don't recall seeing it mentioned in the later ones.

pdonis 5y ago
> there is also mention of Holmes occasionally finding solace from boredom in morphine It's the same story, The Sign Of Four. When Watson sees Holmes taking out the hypodermic, which he has seen him do every day for quite some time but that day feels compelled to say something about it, he asks, "Which is it today, morphine or cocaine?" In A Study in Scarlet, Watson does make a list of things he's observed about Holmes, but drug use of any kind is not among them. AFAIK that's the only mention of morphine in any of the stories, although Holmes is mentioned as taking cocaine in several others (and in some that are after the Return Watson says he has been able to wean Holmes of the drug but can tell that Holmes still thinks about it sometimes). Opium does figure in one story, The Man With The Twisted Lip (in the Adventures), but it's being taken by a friend of Watson's--although when Watson finds Holmes in disguise in the opium den he goes to to rescue his friend, he understandably wonders whether Holmes has been trying a new drug until Holmes explains that he's there working on a case.