StayOnTop: Depression

May 22, 1859 –
Birth date of Arthur Conan Doyle, the Scottish physician and writer who in his popular stories (from 1887 to 1927) created the best known detective ever: the sharply observing and deducing Sherlock Holmes.
   Doyle profiled Sherlock Holmes as an obvious bipolar character, with both manic-active and depressed-lethargic episodes. In the stories, Holmes keeps trying to overcome his periodic depressions by playing the violin (sometimes), smoking (frequently) and using cocaine (as a real addict).
   Portrayed in this way, Doyle's Sherlock Holmes probably was the first popular fiction character suffering from frequent depressions.

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