What 5 Questions Would You Like Answered?

[curious4]

Free liver

The distillers, and brewers would applaud this move!

Yes, I can just see it "Free Eddowes liver with every ten pints! (Only one per household)"

C4

[Wickerman]

There are more than you might suppose:

those who don't have anywhere better to go; those who are cold and hungry; those who are in fear of something or someone. For such people a police station is a place of safety.

And, by way of example:

PRISON PREFERRED TO THE WORKHOUSE.

"I am very glad you have come, constable. I broke the window." This is how Arthur Simmonds, 21, a labourer, addressed Police-constable Hill, on the night of Aug. 29. Simmonds was standing with other persons, outside the shop of Mr. Otto Groose, a stay-maker of 187, High-street, Islington. The constable noticed that a pane of glass, valued at £15, had been broken. The constable asked Simmonds why he had done it. He replied, "I am hard up, and would rather go to prison than to the workhouse." At the Middlesex Sessions, to-day, however, he said the window was broken before he arrived, and a man gave him a penny to say that he had broken it. He was found guilty, and Warder Jones, who said the prisoner went about dressed in artillery uniform playing a cornet, proved thirteen previous convictions. He was sentenced to ten months' imprisonment, with hard labour."
Echo, 6 Sept. 1888.

The question being, what crime was he found guilty of?

[Observer]

Yes, I can just see it "Free Eddowes liver with every ten pints! (Only one per household)"

C4

You'd only need one. Hold on. Perhaps the killer had heard of her legendary liver, and decided he wanted it! Of course he missed and got the kidney instead. Can't have had much knowledge of anatomy though.

Enough of the gallows humour though! haha

[RivkahChaya]

"You may take it that the right kidney of the woman Eddowes was perfectly normal in its structure and healthy, and, by parity of reasoning, you would not get much disease in the left. The liver was healthy and gave no indications that the woman drank." Echo 19th Oct. 1888

Expect the more experienced among you already know this but it is interesting.

Hmm. Well, the "ginny kidney" description we have from one doctor was a mistake at any rate, on the etiology of Bright's disease-- a lot of people thought excessive consumption of alcohol could cause it, when it, in fact, did not, although, as a diuretic, I suppose if you had a chronic case of it, alcohol might set of an acute attack, that I don't know. However, one common cause of acquired kidney disease (as opposed to something with a genetic cause, but sometimes a late onset, like polycystic kidney disease), was a strep infection.

If Eddowes had strep throat, or scarlet fever (which is strep throat with an allergic reaction and thus a rash), and recovered, she could have been left with kidney damage. It was a pretty common cause of death in childhood, and apparently left some children deaf or blind. It does cause a kidney problem called glomerulonephritis, and can also cause juvenile onset rheumatoid arthritis, and damage heart valves. We don't think of strep throat as being a terrible disease anymore, because it's so easily treatable with antibiotics.

Adults do get it as well. Eddowes had children, and the time adults are most likely to get it is when they have small children in close quarters.

So, now there's apparently one doctor saying she had kidney disease, and the other saying no. I have no idea whether strep can damage one kidney and not the other. I suppose it's possible, since even ingested toxins sometimes damage one kidney more than the other, but I am not a doctor. Maybe the surgeon over on the other thread can weigh in. If she had nephritis in one kidney and not the other, or acute nephritis in one kidney and not the other, at any rate, that might explain why don't have a record of her complaining of symptoms or seeking treatment.

What? Common sense? haha There are a few in here who would benefit from a good sized injection of that.

Oh, sorry Kate Eddowes cast iron liver

Actually, I think "cirrhosis" is technically a hardening of the liver because it develops a lot of scar tissue, so "cast iron" liver, maybe not so ideal. "Bionic" liver, maybe.