In the opening scene of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1890 novel 'The Sign of Four', Sherlock Holmes injects himself with a 7 per cent solution of cocaine using a hypodermic syringe.
Notes on verification
Confirmed directly against the original text of the novel, corroborated by Project Gutenberg, Wikipedia, and a dedicated Conan Doyle reference site.
Sources
- Cocaine, the Victorian wonder drug | Wellcome Collection (wellcomecollection.org)
- https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2097/2097-h/2097-h.htm (gutenberg.org)
- https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Sign_of_Four (arthur-conan-doyle.com)