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**Robert** · 02-19-2008, 08:30 PM

supe29th December 2007, 03:53 AM
Simon,

As I pointed out on the other thread, only if someone who specialized in Ob-Gyn were called would it give any credence to the rumors that Kelly had been pregnant. And for the late-starting reports Kelly had a child living with her, surely John McCarthy knew that was nonsense from the start. Why Dr. Gabe was there is open to any number of possibilities, not the least of which being he simply happened to be with one of the other physicians and accompanied him. Doctors are, after all, notorious for sharing interesting cases with colleagues.

Don.

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Simon Wood29th December 2007, 07:26 AM
Hi Don,

I'm attempting to answer the two posts you put on different threads.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with Sir John Williams.

The police might call a paediatrician if the child in question was alive.

Tom Wescott put forward the idea that Gabe was in for "the ticket"—that he just happened along in the company of another doctor on a sensational case—but I cannot buy this. It stretches credulity to the limit to believe that Gabe simply invited himself to what would have been an extremely high-security party.

We know so little about Millers Court that anything is possible. Who's word should we take for it that Kelly wasn't pregnant?

McCarthy? I think not.

Doctor Bond? Only one word in his post mortem report indicated that the corpse was a woman.

Doctor Bagster Phillips? All he established at the inquest was the immediate cause of death and that the corpse was female.

Bond and Phillips could not agree on whether the corpse was naked or partly-clothed.

Bond, in his next-day report to Anderson, acknowledged the corpse was female and then discussed blood spurts and the contents of Kelly's stomach.

Doctor Frederick Brown? No word.

Doctors Duke, Hibbert, and Anderson? No word.

Doctor Gabe? Not even a mention of the victim's sex.

Why involve six extra doctors if only one (Bagster Phillips) would be called to give scant evidence at Kelly's inquest?

Seven doctors, and one a paediatrician. Curious.

Regards,

Simon

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Sam Flynn29th December 2007, 02:22 PM
Hi Simon,
Why involve six extra doctors if only one (Bagster Phillips) would be called to give scant evidence at Kelly's inquest?
We may as well read a lot into why some of the other five were involved. Why pick on Gabe especially?
Seven doctors, and one a paediatrician. Curious.
We don't know that he was a "paediatrician", and in any case an out-and-out paediatrician wouldn't be of much use if there were a dead child involved. They specialise in the treatment of living children, and Gabe certainly came to the rescue of abused living children as part of his work for the RSPCC. Problem is, we don't know what proportion of Gabe's casebook was taken up with such matters or whether, as with Dr Phillips, Llewelyn, Bond et al, he was a "generalist" surgeon brought in to help particular organisations (viz., the police and the RSPCC) on the basis of his surgical knowledge.

It seems that Gabe passed the examinations of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1879, at which point he was listed as an "L.S.A" (Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries) in the Times. I say "seems", because this newspaper entry might refer to that dratted cousin of his, with the same name, vocation, and also born in Merthyr Tydfil.

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robert29th December 2007, 03:41 PM
Hi all

I don't know whether Gabe was a specialist in gynaecology/pregnancy, but I do know that if I had been a doctor at Miller's Court, I would certainly have sent for such a person. This is because :

1. Kelly was the only one of the canonical five who was definitely of child-bearing age (the others were sort of on the borderline, weren't they?)

2. There was no hurry to remove the remains, compared with the other four victims who were murdered outdoors.

3. Kelly's mutilations were the worst of the lot.

In such a situation, I wouldn't want to risk missing a tiny foetus.

Whether Kelly was pregnant is one issue, and I don't believe she was. But from the doctors' point of view, confonted with that shambles in poor light, wouldn't they have wanted to make sure?

Robert

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Sam Flynn29th December 2007, 04:10 PM
Hi Robert,

Even if Gabe were indeed a full-time p�diatrician, he'd have been no more specially qualified to identify a foetus than the others. P�diatricians kick in after obstetricians and midwives leave off, and after the foetus has morphed into a screaming, kicking bundle of joy.

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robert29th December 2007, 05:03 PM
Hi Gareth

Maybe so, but I myself would have wanted an obstetrician or someone similar there. This was the only crime scene they had a chance to investigate in private.

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Sam Flynn29th December 2007, 05:37 PM
Hi Rob,Maybe so, but I myself would have wanted an obstetrician or someone similar there. This was the only crime scene they had a chance to investigate in private.
I honestly can't see that Bond, Brown or Phillips (or Llewelyn, Sequeira, Killeen et al) would have been any less qualified to recognise pregnancy than Gabe. The fact that any one of those medics present were capable of diagnosing gravidity means that Gabe's input would have been entirely redundant in that context.

Now, it may have been the case that the word on the streets was that Kelly indeed had a young child - witness the earliest newspaper reports - and that Gabe may have been called in on the basis of that rumour, in light of his experience in such matters.

Alternatively, Gabe may have simply been on his rounds at one of the children's homes in the vicinity and was invited in because of his "expert witness" experience in examining the wounds of younger people - Kelly being a "younger person" in the context of the Whitechapel Murders.

Finally, perhaps he was asked, or blagged his way in because he was an old chum of one of the other doctors - like Tom, I see no problem with that possibility, or any other of the less "spooky" reasons why Gabe might have been called in.

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robert29th December 2007, 06:09 PM
Well Gareth, it would certainly be interesting if someone could turn up a link between Gabe and one of the other medics.

Robert

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supe29th December 2007, 07:06 PM
Simon,

Sorry, the Sir John Williams mention was aomething of a throwaway line. In fact, he was a noted gynecologist in London at the time and the subject of the execrable book Uncle Jack that named him as Jack the Ripper. Thus, his presence would have been quite a double whammy for theorists.

Anyway, it seems to me your problem is more with the dearth of medical information provided at the inquest, something that has been remarked upon for 119 years. It may all have been part of a conspiracy to suppress information, as some are quick to believe, or it simply might have been Dr. Roderick MacDonald doing what an inquest is supposed to do--determine cause of death--and leave the rest to the police...especially when dealing with an obviously fractious coroner's jury.

As to whether Dr. Gabe was actually callled or simply accompanied another physician we will never know, but to suggest he was there because of his assumed speciality--pediatrics--is not likely. Surely, the only reason a physician who deals with young children might be wanted is if there were a young child in need of attention (and even then any of the other doctors on hand could have rendered treatment).

Moreover, McCarthy and Bowyer were at the immediate scen in addition to the police and they surely would have known if a child had been living with Kelly. And if she had been pregnant (of no particular concern to the police at the moment anyway), well Mary and any presumptive fetus weren't going anywhere anyway and the doctors who were to do the post morten were well capable as part of the routine of determing whether a female body was gravid or not.

So why was Gabe there? Any of the alternate explanations that have been offered would suffice, though I lean toward the possibility that Tom and I offered ages ago. Tom suggests a morbid curiousity and I incline more toward professional ditto, but the result would be the same. And if you think that strains credulity you are a bit naive. Have a patient with an interesting and uncommon complaint enter a hospital and it will seem like it's parade time for lemmings as doctors march in and out of his room to "observe."

Indeed, Gabe's willingness to talk with the press afterwards lends credence to the notion he was there "unofficially." That he was there for any reason other than opportunity seems an unlikely explanation. Burdened as we are with the superior knowledge of hindsight, we must ever guard against the impulse to read more than mere "human nature" into the actions of many involved in the Whitechapel murders. Most of the time most of the participants, including curious doctors, acted as they would always act independent of the fact that they were involved in crimes that would so fascinate us 12 decades later.

Don.

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