The subject of Jack's "anatomical knowledge"

[Hunter]

why would an anatomically skillful ripper deliberately choose the hardest route to access the kidneys when he knew that time was of the essence? It makes no sense.

Kate was lying on her back. Once the entrails are removed the kidneys are easy to access. I have field dressed a lot of wild game in the moonlight sometimes and unless a deer's kidneys are in a different spot, it is not that hard and can be done quickly.

Many people at that time could have done the deed. There were slaughterhouses all over the place and many inhabitants had come to London from a rural background where it was common to slaughter one's own animals for food.

Philips probably based his belief in anatomical skills on Chapman because he may have never seen a murder/mutilation of that sort before. By the Eddowes murder, when it became more apparent as to what kind of killer they were dealing with he had realized his earlier assumtion could have been incorrect, but wouldn't admit it for fear of being discretited, so he said the mutilations were different. Wouldn't be the first time someone protected their ego.

Sequeira said at the inquest that there was enough light in that part of the square to perform the eviscerations.

[DaveMc]

No, I'm not.

From Dr. Sequeira's testimony as reported by the Daily Telegraph on the 12th October 1888:

"I think that the murderer had no design on any particular organ of the body. He was not possessed of any great anatomical skill"

Hello Ben,

How do you equate "any great anatomical skill" to having NO anatomical skill?
And how does Bond's removed viewing of records put him a position to supersede the doctor's who performed the autopsies with their own hands?

and to this:

It was observed that an attempt had been made to "seperate the bones of the neck". The killer clearly failed in that endeavour, which doesn't strike me as being terribly consistent with the actions of a professional butcher.

That is more the work of a meat cutter in any case,
but it only means that he didn't accomplishment.
That could have been caused by a reluctance to make any more mess on his clothing or by interruption.

You appear to be viewing this through a very restricted tube,
even to the point of insulting the competence of the other Doctors.

I think you're intention is defend some other point rather than to engage the subject.

[Trevor Marriott]

I think we have to consider that light was not the medium......temperature could have been.

Organs like the Kidney, Liver and heart have higher blood content than mere muscle and thus are warmer.

So Jack opens his victims up, fishes around for something warm and removes it.

Thats a ridiculous suggestion !!!!!!!!!!! you cannot feel a kidney at best you could locate the lump of renal fat in which the kidney is contained in. Besides entering from the left would make the liver the most accesible organ.

The other poiht to consider is if the killer removed the uterus of Chapman as a "trophy" as has been suggested, then why did he want to remove a second from Eddowes, surely if he was collecting "trophies" another organ i.e liver,or heart.eyes,or tongue doesnt make sense in the light of what i have previoulsy stated that tow different methods were used to enter the abdominal cavitiys of Eddowes and Chapman. In the case of Eddowes my teams of medical experts all agree that the method used is consistent with the post mortem process. Furthermore my consulatnt gynecologist states that the removal of the uterus from chapman is consistent with the removal for experimentation.

[harry]

Surely there was no surgeons skill needed to make the cut that would allow the killer access to the inner body,and this is the most important part of the mutilation.With the initial cut accomplished there would not have been a great deal of inner body exposed,and the darknes and blood would have made sight identificatin of organs difficult,so my opinion is that the killer sought by feel.Didn't need skill,or knowledge of what was where.Just take what,in the killers mind,satisfied him,with the understanding that time allowed him little choice.Except of course in the murder of Kelly,but even there,I fail to see where knowledge and skill is apparant.

[Trevor Marriott]

Surely there was no surgeons skill needed to make the cut that would allow the killer access to the inner body,and this is the most important part of the mutilation.With the initial cut accomplished there would not have been a great deal of inner body exposed,and the darknes and blood would have made sight identificatin of organs difficult,so my opinion is that the killer sought by feel.Didn't need skill,or knowledge of what was where.Just take what,in the killers mind,satisfied him,with the understanding that time allowed him little choice.Except of course in the murder of Kelly,but even there,I fail to see where knowledge and skill is apparant.

You also have to allow for the fact that the killer subjected the bodies to a frenzied attack he did not cuit their throats and then perform surgery he mutilated the abdomens as well this in itself would make it very difficult to find the relevant organs having regard to the amount of blood which would have been in the abdomen from this

[DVV]

Hi Trevor,

The other poiht to consider is if the killer removed the uterus of Chapman as a "trophy" as has been suggested, then why did he want to remove a second from Eddowes

Why not ? He could have kept the first trophy, then thrown it... Or perhaps he wanted to have another... There are many examples of trophy killers as such.

In the case of Eddowes my teams of medical experts all agree that the method used is consistent with the post mortem process.

It's also consistent with the cut to Nichols abdomen, to some extent.

Furthermore my consulatnt gynecologist states that the removal of the uterus from chapman is consistent with the removal for experimentation.

With part of the bladder ?


Amitiés,
David

[DirectorDave]

Trevor I really think you should go back to your team of "Medical Experts" and get them to explain this "Renal Fat" to you.....if you are talking about the "Renal Capsule" which I think you are it would not make it harder to find or remove by either sight or feel but easier.

The fat surrounding the Kidney does a very good job of protecting it against a physical blow or impact…but it does not protect against someone cutting with a knife and attempting to remove it.

[The Good Michael]

I think he ate the bits he took. I don't believe it mattered to him what it was just so it was part of the victim.

Mike

[DVV]

Why didn't he take a liver, then ?
Liver isn't bad, Mike.
Raw, with mitmita...when you're hungover in Ammist Kilo.

Amitiés,
David

[Ben]

Hi DaveMc,

How do you equate "any great anatomical skill" to having NO anatomical skill?

If you describe something as being "not great", you're making a negative statement - that's just obvious. The observations of Drs. Saunders and Sequeira were very obviously to the effect that the killer possessed no more anatomical knowledge or skill than the average Joe.

And how does Bond's removed viewing of records put him a position to supersede the doctor's who performed the autopsies with their own hands?

I never once argued that Bond's views "supersede" those of any of his medical predecessors. I don't need to, since his comments were effectively in allignment with the preponderance of medical opinion to have emerged prior to Bong making his report.

That is more the work of a meat cutter in any case,but it only means that he didn't accomplishment.

Nope, butchers are trained, then and now, to carry out the necessary decapitations and dismemberments that are integral to the "butchering" process. The killer evidently failed his in efforts to seperate the bones of Chapman's neck. If he knew or suspected that there wasn't sufficient time, a butcher was unlikely to have attempted it, since a butcher would know how long the process takes. I'm not sure quite how severing bones would create "any more mess on his clothing".

even to the point of insulting the competence of the other Doctors

Please demonstrate where I did this, or else be good enough to withdraw the nonsensical suggestion.

I think you're intention is defend some other point rather than to engage the subject.

I think your intention is to lash out with any wild accusation you can think of out of frustration that the weight of evidence might just militate against some of your ideas.

[Natalie Severn]

the adjective "GREAT" is one meaning "DEGREE" not absence

Ben,
Keeping strictly to the issue of semantics ,
lets analyse the meaning of the following sentence,by Mr Crawford the coroner:

Mr Crawford:
...... "Having had ample opportunity of seeing the wounds inflicted,he[Dr Saunders] agreed with Dr Brown, and Dr Sequeira that they were not inflicted by a person of great anatomical skill."

The meaning here is quite clear.The qualifying adjective "great" assists the understanding.
Thus what is meant is that the murderer may have possessed anatomical skill but to be more specific it was not "great"-the adjective great simply refers to the degree of skill evidenced in the injuries.

Had Mr Crawford said:

......they [the injuries] were not inflicted by a person of anatomical skill........

Then the meaning would have been entirely altered-but Mr Crawford did not either say or MEAN this.He was speaking in terms of DEGREE of SKILL evidenced in the injuries.

[Ben]

Thus what is meant is that the murderer may have possessed anatomical skill but to be more specific it was not "great

No, Norma, that is rarely the intended meaning of anyone describing something as "not great", but since we're going round in circles, I'll just copy and paste what I've written on this subject a few posts ago.

- Let's exercise caution and avoid semantic meandering here. If you describe an actor as having "no great talent" or a curry as having "no great flavour", you're expressing negativity. The actor's crap and the curry tastes of nothing is what you're saying, in essence. Saunders, Sequeira and Phillips were clearly unimpressed by the anatomical "knowledge" displayed by Eddowes' mutilator.

- Whenever people usually resort to the phrase "X or Y has no great...(whatever)" the central bullet point of their observation is that X or Y is deficient in whatever field or category that X or Y is supposed to be "not great" at. It's a negative observation.

- If you describe something as being "not great", you're making a negative statement - that's just obvious. The observations of Drs. Saunders and Sequeira were very obviously to the effect that the killer possessed no more anatomical knowledge or skill than the average Joe.

For the sake of completion, the Saunders quote continues: "He equally agreed that the murderer had no particular design on any particular internal organ."

[DVV]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jHbsI-tLfk

[The Good Michael]

...... "Having had ample opportunity of seeing the wounds inflicted,he[Dr Saunders] agreed with Dr Brown, and Dr Sequeira that they were not inflicted by a person of great anatomical skill."

I agree with you Natalie. The suggestion is that there was some ability, but how much is the question. It is impossible to say, I'm afraid. If my daughter, when she was 5 years old, was cooking something and burned it, I could say that you didn't possess great skill in cooking. That she actually attempted and burned something, indicates some skill.

Mike

[Natalie Severn]

On the other hand Mike,if you were discussing the literary merits of Dick Francis and Marcel Proust,you might say that Dick Francis as a writer of detective fiction had some literary ability whereas Marcel Proust as the writer of "A La Recherche du Temps Perdu" had "great" literary ability.

Analogies are quite difficult here,in my view, since for a number of months the police were definitely looking for doctors and medical students---sometimes following trails over in France and even further afield-as the police files in Kew testify.But nobody was sure of the degree of anatomical or surgical skill,since these were "murders" performed outdoors ,in haste, in the dark and not "operations" performed in a lighted operating theatre.There was blood and mess everywhere,the murderer did appear to have rummaged about in the victims insides etc.
Police, coroners and doctors were clearly trying to narrow down and determine his "skill with the knife".Was he a butcher,a game hunter,a medical student, a doctor-what exactly was his training or experience?

So I agree that the reports that have come down to us do not give us any certainty .This is unsatisfactory but for me the crucial bit of information has always been that the murderer knew how to subdue his victims rapidly and without struggle or sound.As Dr Phillips said,he seemed to have known the "theory of strangulation" and the function of the carotid artery-----not something a butcher or deer stalker would have needed to know.