Ripper Anatomy Class

[Errata]

You know, I don't know why I didn't think of this, but it may be helpful to your understanding of certain wounds if you knew the properties of the clothes they were wearing. Specifically that none of them were wearing corsets as is modernly understood, and it is astonishingly unlikely that their stays (Eddowes was completely without undergarments) were of whalebone, or even wood. They were almost certainly reinforced with either linen bands, or stiff cotton cord. So they were not wearing anything that a knife would get stuck on, or ricochet off of. They were however wearing everything they owned, and I can personally attest to the difficulty of trying to cut through different fabrics of different weaves. Its probably comparable to sawing through carpet.

15 wearing and sewing and performing in the dang things and you'd think I'd remember it when it was pertinent. *sigh*

[Errata]

There’s a vagus nerve on both sides of your neck and the one on the left is directly next to the carotid artery. Both vagus nerves have different important functions in our body. Without these, you would find it difficult to speak, breathe, or eat, and your heartbeat would become extremely irregular.

What I read once on these boards is that the severing of the left vagus nerve might cause such an irregular heartbeat that that no significant blood spurting would occur or would cause the heart to stop beating altogether. If true, that would obviously be interesting to know with regards to the Ripper case.

I'll be looking forward to your reply!

Thanks & all the best,
Frank

I was just reading about the vagus nerve. And yes, any trauma to the vagus nerve can cause either sycope or sudden cardiac arrest. However there doesn't appear to be a technique that guarantees it. There are certainly attacks that make it more likely, like ligature strangling or this judo chop type thing on both sides of the neck, but I think it kind of depends on too many factors to guarantee a heart attack from it. I'm past it now, but if you want to look you might try "Vagal inhibition". That seems to be the technical term. If you find something cool let me know!

[FrankO]

I had already searched about on the internet and, among other things, read the Wikipedia information, but thanks anyway, Dave!

[protohistorian]

Here is the extent of my knowlege Franko. Dave

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagus_nerve

[FrankO]

Hi Dave & all,

Thanks for posting all this interesting medical information! And others for their contributions!

I have a question: is it possible for you to get any information on the vagus nerve (in addition to the following)?

There’s a vagus nerve on both sides of your neck and the one on the left is directly next to the carotid artery. Both vagus nerves have different important functions in our body. Without these, you would find it difficult to speak, breathe, or eat, and your heartbeat would become extremely irregular.

What I read once on these boards is that the severing of the left vagus nerve might cause such an irregular heartbeat that that no significant blood spurting would occur or would cause the heart to stop beating altogether. If true, that would obviously be interesting to know with regards to the Ripper case.

I'll be looking forward to your reply!

Thanks & all the best,
Frank

[Errata]

Choking is preventing air from passing through the trachea by blocking it or compressing. Preventing blood flow is strangualtion.
Feel free to ask anything, that's what the boards are here for

There is clearly a semantics issue I am wading through on this. As in, there are like, nine different understandings of choking vs. strangulation. The ones I used in my post were all under mechanisms of asphyxia. Asphyxia in this case being defined as the deprivation of oxygen, either through impaired breathing or interference with oxygenated blood reaching vital structures.
So for example, cause of death is asphyxia, cause of asphyxiation is either interrupted breathing or blood flow, means of asphyxiation is manual strangulation, choking on a peanut, etc. It's a model I think I'm going to stick with, given the broadness of words like "choke". At least this gives me the ability to address issues like, manual strangulation, which causes asphyxia, rarely by actually cutting off air, but almost always by denying the brain oxygen. Then I can avoid train wreck sentences like "Choking someone will almost always strangle them, but in rare cases can in fact choke someone to death." Do you think if I just attach a terminology key to something, people can accept it for the duration of reading even if it violates their accepted use of the word?

Chloroform? Excellent. Seems unlikely given the odor, but I'm intrigued.

Thanks for the help!

[protohistorian]

Thank you Joel. Dave

[joelhall]

I ask this because the Killeen description,"The wounds generally might have been inflicted by a knife, but such an instrument could not have inflicted one of the wounds, which went through the chest-bone. His opinion was that one of the wounds was inflicted by some kind of dagger, and that all of them were caused during life..." seems to indicate that only one wound clearly pointed to a second weapon. If the stomach was penetrated and the spleen was then hit, would that not also indicate a longer weapon? Dave

Adding to Fisherman's answer, remember anatomical variation. The stomach itself may be found in different positions and being different sizes based on the nurition level of the victim (not all obese people eat huge amounts, especially if drink if the cause of the weight gain). So it's possible that the stomach was not between the ribs and spleen.

Of course if the stab came from the side of the chest it could reach the spleen without hitting the stomach, travelling between the ribs.

[joelhall]

Ok. I think I'm working this choking thing backwards. Let me try another way.

There are two ways choking kills. Loss of blood to the brain, or loss of the intake of oxygen. Or a combination of both. I have been assuming the loss of oxygen, because the bruising and the petechia normally associated with carotid pressure wasn't mentioned. I'm pretty sure this was known back then, but it may not have, or may not have been widely known. Or it just wasn't in the report. I'm tossing this assumption.

Choking is preventing air from passing through the trachea by blocking it or compressing. Preventing blood flow is strangualtion. This is also the cause of the swellings. Really strangulation works by placing pressure on the veins, preventing flow of blood out of the head rather than into it, which is why people who are strangled turn red and purple rather than pale. In order to put pressure onto the carotid arteries the victim would be choked as well.

There are seven ways of dying of asphyxiation (that I know of). They are suffocation, choking (like on a piece of chicken), manual strangulation, hanging, ligature, traumatic asphyxia (like a crush injury), and the intriguing and new to me positional asphyxia.

There are other ways of becoming asphyxiated, gases, disease, etc, which are much less likely as to be almost certainly not the case. Really in this case asphyxiation would be through choking the victim.

Suffocation seems unlikely. On an adult, without plastic, it tends to break the nose. It certainly causes people to fight like the dickens.

It would be, unless the killer used chloroform.

Choking is out. Unless he scared them so badly they all inhaled a peanut or something.

No, the killer could have applied a choke to the victim during strangulation.

Manual strangulation is a maybe.

Hanging is also out. Outside of an autoerotic setup, you really do need a height to achieve this. Not a great height, but at least some of the crime scenes didn't have the necessary geography for a hanging.

I think we can safely say this is correct.

Ligature seems unlikely, but I'm leaving it on the table.

It's certainly possible, especially if the victim was wearing their own ligature. There's no real reason to discount it yet.

Traumatic asphyxia is also unlikely, but possible so I'll leave it.

There was certainly nothing to indicate this during the post-mortems and inquests. It's not totally far-fetched but there is no real evidence for it.

Positional Asphyxia: now this really makes me think. I have no idea how likely it is, but it's an intriguing notion, and possible. For those like me who don't know what this is, it is a forced or accidental posture that severely impairs breathing. For example, drunk people can and do choke to death when they pass out with their head tilted backward off the side of a couch or bed.

It seems unlikely to be honest. It would involve the victims being unable to move from the position, and strangulation is much more likely if the killer is holding someone by force.

Oh! There is one more way. Drowning. Conventional drowning is out, but I think dry drowning bears a look.

I think dry drowning is highly unlikely.

So there's manual strangulation, ligature strangulation, traumatic asphyxia, positional asphyxia, and dry drowning. I think that the best way for me to go on this is to investigate these. Which I would totally do on my own, barring two difficulties. 1: My autopsy resources are pretty much exactly whats on the victims pages in these forums, and you all seem to have better ones. 2: Even modern medical texts journals and sites seem to disagree on the mechanics of asphyxiation. Blackout takes anywhere from a few second to a few minutes. The force required to break a hyoid bone is anything from a light punch to a baseball bat to the throat. Facial congestion in one book is "minimal" in another "profound". I may need help frankly. I don't want to hijack the thread or anything, so I just hope that if I ask a few questions, you won't take it amiss. And if anyone wants to help, it would surely be appreciated.

Feel free to ask anything, that's what the boards are here for

[protohistorian]

Thanks Fisherman! Dave

[Fisherman]

Not really, as I understand it. The fatty layers on the stomach of a large person still will not be very thick, and when somebody lies down, there will be a compression of the body as the knife is used on it - the punching movement downwards ensures this. Therefore, the pen knife may have been able to puncture the underlying organs with a blade measuring only a couple of inches.

The best,
Fisherman

[protohistorian]

Tabram spleen

I ask this because the Killeen description,"The wounds generally might have been inflicted by a knife, but such an instrument could not have inflicted one of the wounds, which went through the chest-bone. His opinion was that one of the wounds was inflicted by some kind of dagger, and that all of them were caused during life..." seems to indicate that only one wound clearly pointed to a second weapon. If the stomach was penetrated and the spleen was then hit, would that not also indicate a longer weapon? Dave

[protohistorian]

Tabram question

If the spleen is behind the stomach anatomically,for there to exist spleen stabs, does that mean stab entry on the side of the torso to avoid the stomach? Dave

[Errata]

Ok. I think I'm working this choking thing backwards. Let me try another way.

There are two ways choking kills. Loss of blood to the brain, or loss of the intake of oxygen. Or a combination of both. I have been assuming the loss of oxygen, because the bruising and the petechia normally associated with carotid pressure wasn't mentioned. I'm pretty sure this was known back then, but it may not have, or may not have been widely known. Or it just wasn't in the report. I'm tossing this assumption.

There are seven ways of dying of asphyxiation (that I know of). They are suffocation, choking (like on a piece of chicken), manual strangulation, hanging, ligature, traumatic asphyxia (like a crush injury), and the intriguing and new to me positional asphyxia.

Suffocation seems unlikely. On an adult, without plastic, it tends to break the nose. It certainly causes people to fight like the dickens.

Choking is out. Unless he scared them so badly they all inhaled a peanut or something.

Manual strangulation is a maybe.

Hanging is also out. Outside of an autoerotic setup, you really do need a height to achieve this. Not a great height, but at least some of the crime scenes didn't have the necessary geography for a hanging.

Ligature seems unlikely, but I'm leaving it on the table.

Traumatic asphyxia is also unlikely, but possible so I'll leave it.

Positional Asphyxia: now this really makes me think. I have no idea how likely it is, but it's an intriguing notion, and possible. For those like me who don't know what this is, it is a forced or accidental posture that severely impairs breathing. For example, drunk people can and do choke to death when they pass out with their head tilted backward off the side of a couch or bed.

Oh! There is one more way. Drowning. Conventional drowning is out, but I think dry drowning bears a look.

So there's manual strangulation, ligature strangulation, traumatic asphyxia, positional asphyxia, and dry drowning. I think that the best way for me to go on this is to investigate these. Which I would totally do on my own, barring two difficulties. 1: My autopsy resources are pretty much exactly whats on the victims pages in these forums, and you all seem to have better ones. 2: Even modern medical texts journals and sites seem to disagree on the mechanics of asphyxiation. Blackout takes anywhere from a few second to a few minutes. The force required to break a hyoid bone is anything from a light punch to a baseball bat to the throat. Facial congestion in one book is "minimal" in another "profound". I may need help frankly. I don't want to hijack the thread or anything, so I just hope that if I ask a few questions, you won't take it amiss. And if anyone wants to help, it would surely be appreciated.

[protohistorian]

Coles

These are diagrams pertaining to Coles. The x ray shows the 5th cervical vertebra and the wound is at or below this level. I say this for two reasons. In his description Dr. Phillips refers to the severance of the carotid artery implying a wound below the point of bifurcation, the 4th cervical vertebra usually. The second is that he refers in the description to the trachea, which commences at the 5th cervical vertebra.

This is corroborated by Dr. Oxley who states that the larynx was cut twice. The larynx is a structure between C3 and C6 vertebrae.

The second diagram commences 1/3 of the way from the back of the neck and exiting at the front just to the left of the trachea as described by Dr. Phillips.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carotid_artery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertebrate_trachea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larynx

A very special shout out to Trevor Bond who forwarded me the data to make these diagrams. Thank You! Dave