When I use a word . . . Academic and other sleuths—a taxonomy

In my survey of various types of sleuths I have identified four categories: investigative sleuths, who investigate crimes: diagnostic sleuths, clinicians and pathologists who pursue medical diagnoses; research sleuths, clinicians and epidemiologists who search for the causes of diseases and academics in any discipline who undertake research of any kind; and integrity sleuths, who scrutinize the publications of others, looking for evidence of misconduct. The earliest instances that I have found of the use of the term “sleuth” to describe the last of these categories date from the 1980s, but earlier instances might be found by further sleuthing.