Dr John Evelyn Thorndyke is a fictional detective in a long series of 21 novels and 40 short stories by British author R Austin Freeman .
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15 Facts About Dr Thorndyke
2.
Dr Thorndyke was described by his author as a 'medical jurispractitioner': originally a medical doctor, he turned to the bar and became one of the first — in modern parlance — forensic scientists.
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3.
Dr Thorndyke's solutions were based on his method of collecting all possible data and making inferences from them before looking at any of the protagonists and motives in the crimes.
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4.
Dr Thorndyke received his medical education at St Margaret's Hospital, London, where he got his primary degree.
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5.
Dr Thorndyke hung around the chemical and physical laboratories, the museum and post mortem room and meanwhile qualified as an M D and a D Sc.
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6.
Dr Thorndyke was appointed to the post, and then set himself up in chambers.
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7.
Dr Thorndyke was often assisted by his friend and foil Christopher Jervis, who usually acts as narrator, and always by the resourceful Nathaniel Polton, his crinkly-faced lab technician.
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8.
Dr Thorndyke had rescued Polton from poverty, after he had been hospitalised for starvation.
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9.
Polton helped Dr Thorndyke set up the laboratory after he took the rooms at King's Bench Walk.
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10.
Dr Thorndyke tended to have a better relationship with the police than Sherlock Holmes did, despite proving them wrong on numerous occasions.
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11.
Freeman put a great deal of effort into ensuring the accuracy of the Dr Thorndyke stories, including carrying out the described experiments himself, and visiting the locations described in the stories.
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12.
Dr Thorndyke experimented with his own fingerprints and made stamps that could reproduce them.
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13.
Many of the Dr Thorndyke stories are available on Project Gutenberg Australia.
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14.
Short series featuring Dr Thorndyke was produced by the BBC in 1964, entitled Thorndyke.
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15.
On June 9th, 1962, Mollie Hardwick adapted 'Dr Thorndyke Intervenes' as 'The Corpse in the Case' on Saturday Night Theatre for the BBC Home Service.
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