148 RüdigerKunow
with a scene depicting Holmes as apparently wasted by the disease,
which, as he insists, no British doctor, including his friend Dr. Watson,
can cure.Atthis point of the narrative, Culverton Smith, a planter from
Sumatra and "gifted with knowledge of Eastern diseases" (120), is
broughtinto the story—ostensibly to heal Holmes. In his guileful ways,
Holmes, who only simulates the infection, subsequently exposes how
Smith used the fever to murder his own nephew, and in this way, the
narrative finds its predictable happy end in the unravelling of the
medico-mystery.
At first sight, the Tapanuli Fever seems to be little more than a
narrative ploy to demonstrate once again Holmes's resourcefulness. But
even though the fever is a likely invented one^94 and not of epidemic
proportions, its "medico-criminal aspect" (114) nonetheless opens up
larger thematic fields and concerns, and especially a deep-seated
"anxietyofinfluence"onthecolonizer'sside(asthe"Philippinitis"case
above has shown). Conan Doyle's story is neatly organized around the
purity and danger paradigm explored by Mary Douglas. The fever is
doublyothered:itisimported,andworsestill,associatedwiththelower
classes, "a coolie disease," as Holmes notes. He also speaks, rather
ominously, of the presence of "an out-of-the-way Asiatic disease in the
heart of London" (122), which, in the world of the narrative, can be
contained,single-handedlyasitwere,byHolmes'ssuperiorintelligence.
Thereisthusacolonialistangstfiguringassubtextinthisstory,andthis
colonialist dimension attaching itself to infectious diseases is a cultural
factwhichwouldnotbelostontheproducersoflatermedicaldetective
stories such as the makers ofOutbreak. As Susan Harris notes in her
reading of the Conan Doyle story: "Britain's expansion into 'the East'"
has opened up the colonizers to the "pathological possibilities" lurking
there and which must be "contained by Holmes's own special 'powers'"
(Harris447).
Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Dying Detective" was
published in 1913 atthe height of British imperialism.Later figurations
of the disease detective would no longer rely on brainpower alone but
(^94) ConanDoyle'smedicaltrainingclearlycomesintoplayhere.However,Iwill
not attempt to identify its "real" avatar; for such an attempt cf. Vora, Setu K.
"Sherlock Holmes and a Biological Weapon."Bulletin of the Royal Society of
Medicine98(2002):101-03.Print.