Lusk Letter sent to George Lusk of the vigilante committee

[Cap'n Jack]

Sam, you are being very overbearing here.
Openshaw had the science to determine right or left kidney, without question; he also had the science to tell him that the kidney came from a person who took too much alcohol, that without question.
The Victorian doctors believed they had found a reliable indicator from kidney secretions in determining the sexual origins of that kidney.
You are arguing with them, not me.
You are out of date by over one hundred years, and you are introducing modern research into a subject that died with the victims.
I believe that Openshaw was making an opinion based on the science of his time, and I believe that his opinion was right.
To credit the most eminent clinical pathologist of his age as not being able to distinguish the difference between a pig and human kidney, does you no credit, Sam, and if the old boy could stand up from his grave I'm sure he would punch you for that.

[Sam Flynn]

perhaps. though again to an expert more things are apparent than to the layman.

You might be interested to read, in that article I referred to, the opinions of Nick Warren, a qualified surgeon, on this matter.

[joelhall]

Openshaw had about as much to go on as one might have in buying a steak from the butchers and trying to sex the beast from which it came.

You'd better read this: http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-cmdlusk.html

perhaps. though again to an expert more things are apparent than to the layman. fact is i dont believe it was eddowes kidney in the first place.

[Sam Flynn]

i thought it was the renal artery which was attached?

Openshaw had about as much to go on as one might have in buying a steak from the butchers and trying to sex the beast from which it came.

You'd better read this: http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-cmdlusk.html

[joelhall]

All we have on any sort of authority is that Openshaw thought it to be a human kidney. All the rest - from its "ginniness", the remnant of the renal vasculature, to the supposed sex and age of its owner - derives from press agency reports regurgitated in various papers, or from demonstrably suspect memoirs written years after the event....how about an eighteen year-old male's? Don't forget that, as far as the kidneys and most other organs are concerned, "maturity" might span several decades.

Besides, it's worth repeating, we are not talking about "A" kidney - we are talking about a "PIECE" of kidney that had been soaked in absolute alcohol for some time before it was examined.

i thought it was the renal artery which was attached?

anyway, the rough age could be determined simply through the signs of 'wear' it had seen. size is not the only change, with aging. theres the sizes and structural changes to the internal structures, amount of remaining kidney tissues, hardness of the blood vessels, number of filtering units, etc. in short, the doctor wouldnt just look at one sign, but many together, to give a higher probability. i doubt any doctor will diagnose anything on one symptom. he certainly wouldnt give legal evidence based on it.

remember this isnt something you or i could grasp immediately reading books, these things require experience. the medical profession does not require learning, remembering, then work, it requires constant learning over the whole career, examination of case studies, and of the cases brought forward. the chances of a mistake, whilst not completely absent, are far lower than they appear to the layman.

these signals will also give the expert information on the lifestyle, health, diet, etc of the person... in short it is not pure guess work by glancing at the organ on a tray.

these characteristics and changes are as obvious and confusing to us as in many other fields. which is why they require expert opinion. for example im sure our new member the anthropologist, could tell us that there are skeletons of various animals that the layman, despite his book collection could not tell apart. only an experienced expert can. (i believe lions and tigers display this). indeed i doubt id have a hope of giving someones probable age at death by examining the skeleton.

medical disciplines are not as straight forward as reading books. it requires a high level of learning both in the classroom and on the job. i have no reason to doubt that he was correct to a good degree of accuracy.

however as stated im not a qualified doctor (if i ever do ), and not an expert. i dont have as in depth a knowledge of renal physiology as a doctor.

[Sam Flynn]

precisely. though what else is he supposed to do when presented with the kidney, and asked for his opinion.

All we have on any sort of authority is that Openshaw thought it to be a human kidney. All the rest - from its "ginniness", the remnant of the renal vasculature, to the supposed sex and age of its owner - derives from press agency reports regurgitated in various papers, or from demonstrably suspect memoirs written years after the event.

though in fairness an experience doctor in this field would see the difference between an adult and immature kidneys.

...how about an eighteen year-old male's? Don't forget that, as far as the kidneys and most other organs are concerned, "maturity" might span several decades.

Besides, it's worth repeating, we are not talking about "A" kidney - we are talking about a "PIECE" of kidney that had been soaked in absolute alcohol for some time before it was examined.

[joelhall]

Hi Joel,Which might have led him to mistake a small man's, a child's, or even a pig's, kidney for the few grams of trimmed-up and alcohol soaked half-organ he had before him. I'd equate it to giving a chip-fryer a scrubbed, par-boiled potato fritter and asking him to judge, on general shape and weight alone, whether it came from a Maris Piper or a Maris Pier.

precisely. though what else is he supposed to do when presented with the kidney, and asked for his opinion. though in fairness an experience doctor in this field would see the difference between an adult and immature kidneys.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Joel,

like i said opinion based on experience

Which might have led him to mistake a small man's, a child's, or even a pig's, kidney for the few grams of trimmed-up and alcohol soaked half-organ he had before him. I'd equate it to giving a chip-fryer a scrubbed, par-boiled potato fritter and asking him to judge, on general shape and weight alone, whether it came from a Maris Piper or a Maris Pier.

[joelhall]

like i said opinion based on experience.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Joel,

he would have made his medical opinion based on experience, noting the size, shape, etc of the kidney to explain gender

...and, as we've seen, there is a large variation in the size and weight of the kidneys of males and females, furthermore the statistical distributions show a large amount of overlap. The upshot is that the gross anatomy of the kidney is a poor indicator of the sex of the person to whom the organ once belonged. The shape is no differentiator either, because the human kidney is practically - if not exactly - the same shape in both sexes. Indeed the human kidney is very similar, in a gross morphological sense, to that of a pig - although I believe the renal pyramids are slightly smaller in pigs than in humans.

Let us not forget that Openshaw was not presented with a whole organ anyway, but half of one kidney - and even that may have been "trimmed up", if Dr Gordon Brown's refutation was accurately reported.

[joelhall]

in response to both of you...

i am unable to find any modern references to kiestein/kyestein as yet.

luckily the education can make some deductions here...

i would imagine that was once discovered and thought to be a specific compound, is more likely a description of a build up of waste products, with low surface adhesion. the fact there are properties such as the fatty desposits, and referring to dr. hassells work, suggested to me this is due to a mix of dairy digestion bi-products, and excreted mineral salts (though im not adept in urinary compounds yet, nor am i going to specialise in renal medicine haha).

neither have i found any reference to this as a renal deposit (could you provide the source for this please id like to read through it).

id also imagine that alcohol preservation would have a negative effect on its preservation, most likely leaving the surface residue in the spirits (though its beyond me if this would be in the same state).

im quite interested in this now though, and thankfully ancestors of mine were in the medical profession and some of their books, so ill have a look for old copies of blacks, etc see if anything comes up

one last thing... structuraly, both sexes will have identical kidneys, though for someone used to seeing them, there would no doubt be 'cosmetic' differences, based on the gender of the person (such as due to different size and shape of the pelvis, location of sexual organs). as theres no records mentioned so i doubt any tests were carried out more than visual. he would have made his medical opinion based on experience, noting the size, shape, etc of the kidney to explain gender, as he would obviously be expected to give this information at the least.

any qualified doctors here?

joel

[Sam Flynn]

Sam's contention that soaking the kidney in some form of alcohol would blind or ruin the secretion is I think false. For my impression is that such marinating would actually increase the olfactory response of the substance.

We're talking about cheesy piss, AP, not foie gras.

Besides - as I posted yesterday - it's not a secretion to be savoured by holding a freshly-split (un-pickled) kidney up to one's nose, but a deposit that was alleged to be found floating on top of a jar of urine that had been left standing for a day or longer. As Joel's post indicated, kiestein seems to have become regarded as a bit of a will'o'the wisp even by the 1860s. It certainly doesn't appear in any medical textbook that I own, and it's not in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

The fact of the matter is that we do not know what experiments Openshaw carried out on the kidney he was presented with, but it is entirely possible that by using a microscope he was able to determine reliable markers of the time which allowed him to make a reasonable choice as to the sexual origin of that kidney.

There ARE no tests that could reveal the sexual origin of a kidney, short of karyotyping it and looking for an XX or XY chromosome pair - and that knowledge, never mind the techniques to support it, was NOT AVAILABLE at the time Openshaw examined the kidney, and would not be available for some decades afterwards.

To speculate otherwise is just sheer nonsense.

I'm glad you agree.

[Cap'n Jack]

You are lucky, Joel, I got no legs left.
I'm not so sure I want to roll over and play dead anyway, as I said never say never.
Reading through the experiments that Dr Elisha Kent Kane conducted - in the early part of his fabled career - it seems to me that he regarded 'Kyestein' as a renal secretion firstly; and as such would be found in a kidney that had abruptly stopped secreting due to sudden death.
Sam's contention that soaking the kidney in some form of alcohol would blind or ruin the secretion is I think false. For my impression is that such marinating would actually increase the olfactory response of the substance.
The fact of the matter is that we do not know what experiments Openshaw carried out on the kidney he was presented with, but it is entirely possible that by using a microscope he was able to determine reliable markers of the time which allowed him to make a reasonable choice as to the sexual origin of that kidney.
To speculate otherwise is just sheer nonsense.

[joelhall]

having said that i do it alot playing devils advocate, and reckon im down to 2 toes and half an ear now

[joelhall]

Ah well, boys, I said I was chancing my arm here... I just never like to say 'never'.
It's a discipline you boys should try.

surely discipline would be not doing it

joel