Response Journal - Essay Example

Essay Analysis: The story is about a case brought to Sherlock Holmes involving the doctor’s patient who comes to him with an injury involving his thumb. The man is an Engineer and he proceeds to explain how he got a high paying client who took him with a lot of secrecy to an out of town household with a false story about the use of a hydraulic machine they needed him to help them repair. In the end after his consultancy is done, they try to kill him. He manages to flee through a small door and is assisted by a lady to escape from the murderous man after him.

However this not before he looses his thumb to a cleaver wielded by the same man. He jumps to safety and despite losing consciousness due to blood loss, he somehow gets back tom the train safely and to the doctor who takes him to Sherlock’s home. We discover later that the machine was actually a press used in the counterfeiting of coins by the criminals that had tried to end his life.This story is starts off with some rather tempting proposition which gets us thinking is it right for the engineer to accept the job despite the man acting as suspicious as he did?

The engineer we can say acted in good faith and also was ethical enough in promising not to talk about the job to anyone. According to the code of ethics for engineers from the National Society of Professional Engineers, section II rules of practice sub section c states that, “Engineers shall not reveal facts, data, or information without the prior consent of the client or employer except as authorized or required by law or this Code.” So he actually acted ethically here.There is the question of how willing was the engineer to be beguiled in his haste to make quick money after his long stay without a client.

Was he a bit greedy for the money promised? In part 8 of Doyle’s ‘The Adventure of The Engineers Thumb’ the engineer actually points out “"I thought of the fifty guineas, and of how very useful they would be to me. He then proceeds to tell the man ‘Not at all, I shall be very happy to accommodate myself to your wishes.” This makes him easy to cheat and use for the crooks. The very first questions asked by the thin man should have put the engineer on guard as they are very telling in themselves.

He enquires if the engineer is an orphan and if he has no wife or dependants. This already shows the thin man planned to kill him after his work as his disappearance would be easy to cover having no one to look for him. This should have been telling questions or was the engineer too concerned with money he forgot his ethical and logical considerations?ReferencesAuthor Conan Doyle: The Adventure Of The Engineers Thumb. Strand Magazine in March 1892.National society of professional engineers: “Code of Ethics for Engineers” http://www.nspe.org, July 2007.