JTR: Not even the skill of a butcher?

[paul emmett]

Again, though, Brown was apparenly the only Eddowes medic who detected skill. The other three - Saunders, Sequeira and Phillips - weren't nearly as sure.

Ben, I was looking up Saunders and found that Sugden notes that both Saunders and Sequeira explicitly said they were endorsing Brown, and he quotes Seq in a STAR interview, saying, "not an expert, . . . but not altogether ignorant of the use of the knife." Faint and ambiguous praise, indeed.

[Sam Flynn]

There you go again Sam----"the layman who wasnt there"

No, Nats - the fortysomething who still has his faculties, rather than the old fart exclaiming "By Jove, 'pon my soul! An hysterectomeh? Fifteen minutes at least!".

And hardly a layman, by the way. No surgeon, admittedly, but someone who's cut up enough rats, rabbits and dogfish (not to mention sausages) to have a fair punt at sussing out what JTR did to Annie Chapman, without letting the starch in my collar affect my judgment.

[Ben]

Again, though, Brown was apparenly the only Eddowes medic who detected skill. The other three - Saunders, Sequeira and Phillips - weren't nearly as sure.

[paul emmett]

Phillips was outnumbered anyway. The contemporary medical officials who detected little to no expertise - Bond, Sequeira, Saunders etc - were actually in the majoriy

But then there's Brown, who, with Eddowes, takes us back to skill and knowledge. And for me there's always the hint of surgeons' reticence to come anywhere near incriminating one of their own. And I am not a Ripper=Doctor fan.

Good evening.

[paul emmett]

Beardmore's abdominal wounds comprised a couple of stabs to the upper abdomen and a slashing cut lower down that caused her bowels to protrude, which is clumsy butchery by any standards. I daresay that Phillips would have labelled Polly Nichols' wounds as a "clumsy piece of butchery" on that basis. But we'll never know.

Hello, all.

But we do know--at least according to Sugden--that Phillips saw so much less expertise in the Eddowes murder that he"was inclined to believe that these crimes had been done by different men." So Phillips at least isn't infallible. He thought Chapman herself had been dead for at least two hours, and he thought Stride's killer had siezed her by the shoulders and placed her on the ground. So while I do think his expert opinion must be considered, I also think that it, at least at times, needs to be thought on.

Oh, I am of the opinion--like Phillips-- that he knew what he was looking for and had the anatomical knowledge to get it.

Oh,Oh. Some of this was said as I composed. Never Mind!

[Doctor X]

Exactly.

--J.D.

[Ben]

Phillips was outnumbered anyway. The contemporary medical officials who detected little to no expertise - Bond, Sequeira, Saunders etc - were actually in the majoriy, and if we're to champion Phillips' belief above his colleagues (for some weird reason) surely we ought to dismiss Eddowes as a ripper victim as Phillips did?

Or, if we think he was wrong about dismissing Eddowes, maybe he was wrong in attributing too much "skill" to the killer?

[Doctor X]

Meh.

One has to be skeptical of even experts sometimes. This is the problem with a case like this in which there is no objective evidence one can throw out to settle the argument. Phillips does seem to discount the "clumsy damage."

Now, Phillips had a right to his opinion, he was there, he probably was not an idiot, but that does not mean one cannot reasonably question his opinion. What he does document does question his conclusion as discussed above.

It is frustrating, of course, that one cannot simply turn to a good detailed autopsy report, with detailed photographs, to determine whether or not he was accurate in his assessment and to what degree.

--J.D.

[jc007]

I have to agree with you Natalie, it seems people like to refute the actual people and events of the time and make up thier own theories thinking they or more mordern experts who were not there at the time nor saw any of the crime scenes etc etc etc, know better than the police and police surgeons of the era. It seems to be more of a power play who can think up the best sounding theory and best way to present it instead of actually using real evidence on the case to back up what they say, its easy to pull theorys out of a hat and to say the Drs of their time have no idea, but its harder to actually back it up.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Nats,What I'm suggesting is that Phillips was so impressed by the removal of the womb that he was blinded to the clumsy damage wrought elsewhere on Annie's body. It's quite probable that he'd never seen anything quite like this in his puff, which might also explain the frankly ridiculous length of time he suggests the killer would have needed to complete this crude butchery.

There you go again Sam----"the layman who wasnt there" telling us how wrong "the expert was, who was there"!Maybe it was precisely that seeing these injuries in their entirety gave the "overall impression" to Dr Phillips of the "finesse and skill" of the Ripper----as compared with the hundreds of other knifings and murders he had attended over eleven years in Whitechapel.Its your determination to see these" big dollops" and "wreckage" and "crude butchery" everywhere that is at variance with Dr Phillips considered medical opinion.
Best
Natalie

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Nats,

I dont either know quite what you are saying here,Sam, unless its that Dr Phillips didnt know what he was talking about which just seems ridiculous.

What I'm suggesting is that Phillips was so impressed by the removal of the womb that he was blinded to the clumsy damage wrought elsewhere on Annie's body. It's quite probable that he'd never seen anything quite like this in his puff, which might also explain the frankly ridiculous length of time he suggests the killer would have needed to complete this crude butchery.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Perry,
Well I have been posting but I have been busy lately- so not as much!
Anyway,Dr Bond was Robert Anderson"s lacky from Whitehall.He could be counted on, like Swanson, to nod in agreement at whatever Anderson decided to declare was so.Not nearly "impartial" enough on several crucial cases .
Good to see you Perry Mason!
Nats
x

[Doctor X]

Whereas, with Nichols and Eddowes, where he was pretty much working in complete darkness ,he draws a line with his knife from breast bone to pubes.?

He does not do that with Eddowes.

--J.D.

[Natalie Severn]

But you didnt see it........

Hi Nats,Beardmore's abdominal wounds comprised a couple of stabs to the upper abdomen and a slashing cut lower down that caused her bowels to protrude, which is clumsy butchery by any standards. I daresay that Phillips would have labelled Polly Nichols' wounds as a "clumsy piece of butchery" on that basis. But we'll never know.

In the case of Chapman, Phillips seems to have been so swayed by a sub-cervical cut to Annie's uterus that he overlooked the rough dollops of flesh carved from her belly, the severed colon and the stump of the bladder that were staring him in the face. Quite how he felt compelled to extrapolate this wreckage to attribute "expertise" to the killer has always baffled me.

Just my opinion - your mileage may vary

I agree it is difficult for us in retrospect to "see" the set up.But I dont recall any doctor using terms like " rough dollop" or "wreckage" ---- I dont either know quite what you are saying here,Sam, unless its that Dr Phillips didnt know what he was talking about which just seems ridiculous.
So,maybe it does all " look" very different to you, but you werent there to see it all"in the flesh" ,moreover, you may be very knowledgeable Sam,but you are not a trained Whitechapel police surgeon.
Best
Natalie

First things first Nats.....great to see you back on the planks here.

A good post, and wasn't it the Eddowes murder he had reservations about, Jack-wise? And what you say about our "Bagster", or the "Bagmeister" is correct, he had more hands-on literally than anyone else. Its one reason why I don't trust Bonds assertions, because I believe the only one he actually presided over was Mary Kelly, and from that and notes deduced all 5 were one man with no skill, and yet when called in on Alice McKenzie, he curiously said just about the same thing regarding Alice's wounds as Phillips did about Ms. Beadmoor's wounds. Proving at the very least he can get confused, giving an opinion that virtually nullifies his opinion at the "Time of Jack".

I'm in a good mood tonight, so forgive the attempts at jocularity.

As I said, asking if The Ripper showed any skill based on a C5 concept is a question flawed from the get-go, ...asking which victims exhibited signs that was perhaps the case, might be more revealing.

Cheers Nats.