Eddowes' gut cut

[Elamarna]

If i recall correctly, Trevor's butchery expert, also said he would probably remove the Kidney by hand, not by cutting it out.


Steve

[Fisherman]

I didn't mean to suggest that the killer was definitely a huntsman or whatever. Just that the details of the kidney extraction are not incompatible. They're pretty scant really - one cut, carefully removed. That could fit a variety of removal techniques. The abdominal opening looks very amateurish though.

Wasn't it around the time of the Pinchin St torso that someone suggested that London butchers had a recognisable style? The police and/or doctors didn't make mention of that. Or didn't see any similarity.
I don't think Bond saw Eddowes, but I believe he did hunt deer in the country so would most likely be familiar with gralloching - quickly removing the entrails before the meat spoils.

The suggestion of a typical London butchery technique was, I believe, suggested by a renowned medico from the Midlands who wasn´t necessarily very serious. I have forgotten his name, but the suggestion was seemingly not a very viable one.
Thanks for the clarification about the kidney removal.

[Fisherman]

Lawson Tait - that was the name of the medico, I believe.

[Sam Flynn]

Lawson Tait - that was the name of the medico, I believe.

Correct, Fish. And you're right in pointing out that Tait's notion of a typical "London butcher style" wasn't viable.

[Wickerman]

That may be true - but it should have been obvious to them which way the kidney took out of the body, and there would have been press people and police alike who had access to the information about it. Somebody should have known.

Hi Christer.
I would say the doctors didn't say too much. This was a rigid class system, they were also concerned to protect their profession.
We can't know what they were thinking, and they were quite reserved in what they did say.

[Joshua Rogan]

The meaning of words do change over time. In the Victorian age "opposite" also meant "in front of".
Here we should replace "opposite" with, "in front of" the enciform cartilage (aka Xiphoid process).



The cut certainly began at the sternum (not the pubes), but just below the sternum. As the Enciform/Xiphoid is the lowest point of the sternum, the cut began just ahead (below) the xiphoid process (in front of it).
This was the initial stab, but the knife was thrust upwards behind the sternum and not directly into the chest. So, up and at an angle, then dragged down to the pubes.

For comparison, this extract from A System of Legal Medecine uses 'opposite' in a description of determining the sex of a body;

"...in the female the sternum is more convex and shorter, and the xiphisternal articulation is opposite the curve of the fourth rib."

[Batman]

Jabbing would certainly link victims. That's a very rare disorder called Picquerism. Keppel did a paper on it.

I think JtR was somewhat inspired by the London Monster who may have existed or not and was said to have carried out jabbing attacks between 1788 and 1790. 100 years before JtR.

[Sam Flynn]

Jack the Ripper was into cutting - big style - not jabbing or stabbing. To coin a phrase, Jack was into "couperism" (from French couper, "to cut"), not "piquerism" (from French piquer, "to prick"). To put cutting and stabbing in the same category is, in my view, a dangerous and potentially misleading blurring of boundaries, which Keppel (for whom I have the utmost respect) should not have done.

[Batman]

Jack the Ripper was into cutting - big style - not jabbing or stabbing. To coin a phrase, Jack was into "couperism" (from French couper, "to cut"), not "piquerism" (from French piquer, "to prick").

They are not mutually exclusive.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jip.22

That's Keppel's paper. The synopsis mentions it but the paper is much more detailed, IF, you can get past the pay-block. Sorry.

[Sam Flynn]

They are not mutually exclusive.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jip.22

That's Keppel's paper. The synopsis mentions it but the paper is much more detailed, IF, you can get past the pay-block. Sorry.

Thanks, Batman, but I purchased Keppel's paper not long after it came out. It's a fine piece of work, but I think he and his team were very wrong in conflating stabbing and cutting; two acts which produce very different results, and which are experienced very differently from the point of view of the person inflicting the wounds.

I'm also a bit of a stickler for linguistic rigour, and "piquer", from which piquerism derives, does not mean "to cut"; it means "to prick" or "to stab". Now, I don't believe that Keppel invented or defined the term "piquerism", but whoever did should have been more careful in his/her use of language.

[Batman]

I believe what Keppel is saying is that JtR shows an escalation and that if we backtrack we will find the picquerist before they gravitate towards mutilation. That the mutilations show evidence of also picquerism. That these can connect victims because it is a rare trait even among these serial offenders. Meaning Keppel has explained some of the wounds being a connection.

Martha Tabram seems to be a good example of a possible JtR candidate for reasons like this.