The kidney removal of Catherine Eddowes.

[GBinOz]

Hi George,

The point I was trying to make, and apparently failed, was that butcher/slaughterers were eviscerating hour after hour, day after day, must have developed specific techniques for this, and we have no way of knowing what they were. There is no reason to suppose that they were not similar to surgical techniques developed later. Would a bucher have deviated around the navel - probably yes! How can we know how an experienced slaughterer might have removed a heart. For what it is worth, I am not convinced totally that Kelly was a victim of JtR.

We don't know just how skilled JtR was, nor do we know what his exact purpose was - was he just getting a thrill from cutting a body up, was he after a specific organ, or did he just take a trophy. We cannot know.

We may know these medical procedures to which you refer, but we have no knowledge whatever of slaughterers' evisceration techniques, but they must have existed.

Hi Doc,

I think that we have to acknowledge that a butcher's aim was to eviscerate a body to attain a carcass with the innards being separated for later processing for by products. I struggle to see how this relates to medical dissections. Why would a butcher commit to the time involved in carefully extracting the heart from the pericardium. The entire innards, including heart and, in the case of a female animal, the reproductive organs, as well as the bladder, would have ended up on the floor. There would have been no intricate procedure involved- that just wasn't economical.

For what it is worth, I am also not convinced totally that Kelly was a victim of JtR, but I am also not convinced that JtR was a single entity.

Cheers, George

[John Wheat]

Hi George,

The point I was trying to make, and apparently failed, was that butcher/slaughterers were eviscerating hour after hour, day after day, must have developed specific techniques for this, and we have no way of knowing what they were. There is no reason to suppose that they were not similar to surgical techniques developed later. Would a bucher have deviated around the navel - probably yes! How can we know how an experienced slaughterer might have removed a heart. For what it is worth, I am not convinced totally that Kelly was a victim of JtR.

We don't know just how skilled JtR was, nor do we know what his exact purpose was - was he just getting a thrill from cutting a body up, was he after a specific organ, or did he just take a trophy. We cannot know.

We may know these medical procedures to which you refer, but we have no knowledge whatever of slaughterers' evisceration techniques, but they must have existed.

Great post. I might add that a lot of serial killers begin by killing animals and it would be perfectly possible that Jack eviscerated the animals he'd killed so might have been experienced in evisceration before the C5. In short I don't think ruling any suspect in or out due to surgical skill and anatomical knowledge or supposed lack of it is a good idea.

[Doctored Whatsit]

Hi Doc,

I think that we have to acknowledge that a butcher's aim was to eviscerate a body to attain a carcass with the innards being separated for later processing for by products. I struggle to see how this relates to medical dissections. Why would a butcher commit to the time involved in carefully extracting the heart from the pericardium. The entire innards, including heart and, in the case of a female animal, the reproductive organs, as well as the bladder, would have ended up on the floor. There would have been no intricate procedure involved- that just wasn't economical.

For what it is worth, I am also not convinced totally that Kelly was a victim of JtR, but I am also not convinced that JtR was a single entity.

Cheers, George

Hi George,

I fully understand what you are saying. I just don't think JtR was attempting total evisceration of his female victims, as if they were pigs or sheep, there is no evidence to suggest that. I believe that he was using his experience to slash his victim and obtain some sort of trophy, though possibly not with a specific plan for a particular organ each time. Like you, I also think that there may have been more than one Whitechapel murderer.

[FrankO]

Hi Frank,

I quite agree. but with so many unknowns and so many contradictions, can we justify dismissing any theories addressed at providing possible solutions? There may have been more than one perpetrator, and Trevor provides a theory that relieves the ripper from having to possess advanced dissection techniques. I don't know that we are so amply provided with hard facts as to enable us to dismiss theories out of hand.

Cheers, George

Hi George,

Except for the fact that these poor women were butchered and were discovered some time after their killer had left, there are very few hard facts, if any at all, to be found in this whole case. So, it’s up to our individual sense of logic and way of thinking what to make of the evidence left to us. Mine tells me that Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly fell victim to the same man and that this individual didn’t stop at lifting the skirts, opening up the abdomen and getting intestines out of the way. Why should we think he did stop there, when we know some serial killers did take organs or body parts from their victims? I see no compelling reason to think he wouldn’t have taken away organs, especially the uterus. Just my view, of course.

Cheers,
Frank