I don't think the original Holmes was quite as lacking in empathy as either House or the new Sherlock.
No, but it makes for some hilarious onscreen moments, doesn't it? I just rewatched the first Sherlock, and there's a great moment where he notices that the lady at the morgue applied lipstick shortly before asking him if he wanted to get coffee. He says "Thank you, black, two sugars please" or something like that, then when she removes the lipstick later ("it wasn't working for me" she says), criticizes her for doing so because it makes her mouth look too small.
The comedy there was ostensibly that Sherlock is oblivious to a woman trying to get a date with him. But in a later episode, we see him carefully reading another woman's physiological responses to attraction, so in hindsight, that moment in the first episode is either bad continuity, or Sherlock was
negging.
