Did he have anatomical knowledge?

[curious4]

Pork butcher

Hello Trevor,

Well there was one at least :-). But I agree, any pig who decided to take a stroll through the starving slum dwellers would have had only the squeal left when it got to the other side.

Best wishes
C4

P.S. I did get it - harhar!

[Trevor Marriott]

Thanks Sam and GUT. I did know the question came up at the inquest, but was unsure whether there were big differences between how to extract kidneys, etc etc. Now I know :-). Yes, Lynn, pigs as well - maybe the young master was fascinated when it was time to say goodbye to their porcine friends! Adding credence to my Posh Jack theory - one of three I am attached to. Theories, I mean, not pigs - disliked them since one bit me on the behind when I was a child at my step-grandfather's farm!

Best wishes
C4

You would have trouble finding a pork butcher in Whitechapel !

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[curious4]

Innards

Thanks Sam and GUT. I did know the question came up at the inquest, but was unsure whether there were big differences between how to extract kidneys, etc etc. Now I know :-). Yes, Lynn, pigs as well - maybe the young master was fascinated when it was time to say goodbye to their porcine friends! Adding credence to my Posh Jack theory - one of three I am attached to. Theories, I mean, not pigs - disliked them since one bit me on the behind when I was a child at my step-grandfather's farm!

Best wishes
C4

[Trevor Marriott]

Well, Dr Brown in his inquest deposition for Kate Eddowes did state '..It required a great deal of knowledge to have removed the kidney and to know where it was placed.' He went on to say, though, that 'Such a knowledge might be possessed by someone in the habit of cutting up animals'. Such as a slaughterman or butcher.
Drs Sequeira and Saunders attributed elementary anatomical skill to the killer and Dr Phillips thought that the mutilation in the case of Eddowes...'gave no evidence of anatomical knowledge in the sense that it evidenced the hand of a qualified surgeon' according to Swanson's report.

Does it make sense to suggest that a surgeon or someone within the medical profession would kill and remove organs when the same organs were readily available on a daily basis from mortuaries?

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Rosella]

Well, Dr Brown in his inquest deposition for Kate Eddowes did state '..It required a great deal of knowledge to have removed the kidney and to know where it was placed.' He went on to say, though, that 'Such a knowledge might be possessed by someone in the habit of cutting up animals'. Such as a slaughterman or butcher.
Drs Sequeira and Saunders attributed elementary anatomical skill to the killer and Dr Phillips thought that the mutilation in the case of Eddowes...'gave no evidence of anatomical knowledge in the sense that it evidenced the hand of a qualified surgeon' according to Swanson's report.

[lynn cates]

pigs

Hello Gwyneth, Gareth, Rosella. Right you are. And the cuts SHOULD be clean, precise and skillful.

Pigs, eh? (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[Rosella]

Thanks Wickerman. Interesting! I just wonder though whether, if Jack was a butcher whether he could have picked up such knowledge from buying second hand medical books explaining these procedures. If he wasn't a surgeon or medical student he could be someone using a knife in his daily life and able to kill horses or pigs quickly. A self employed butcher for instance might experiment on them in that way before proceeding to humans.

[Wickerman]

There are other trades that use knives of course, but surely a butcher, slaughterman or hunter, someone used to a layout of a mammalian body, would be quite expert in removing organs, especially if they'd worked in those areas for many years? The very fact that doctors at the time were in two minds about whether the killer had anatomical skills says something about it, doesn't it?

It's a bit more than that though Rosella. Prosector explained the tendency for a surgeon to skirt around the bellybutton, rather than slice directly through, and the reason why. Something that doesn't occur to a butcher, hunter or slaughterman.
This is the page:
http://forum.casebook.org/showpost.p...2&postcount=81

You might also be interested to read this:
http://forum.casebook.org/showpost.p...4&postcount=57

[Rosella]

There are other trades that use knives of course, but surely a butcher, slaughterman or hunter, someone used to a layout of a mammalian body, would be quite expert in removing organs, especially if they'd worked in those areas for many years? The very fact that doctors at the time were in two minds about whether the killer had anatomical skills says something about it, doesn't it?

[GUT]

How much difference is there between animal bodies and human ones? (That sounds stupid) but would someone with a knowledge of skinning and dressing, say deer, be able to apply that knowledge to a human body? Where to find the various organs and so on.

Best wishes
C4

A pig is very similar in many ways.

[Sam Flynn]

How much difference is there between animal bodies and human ones? (That sounds stupid) but would someone with a knowledge of skinning and dressing, say deer, be able to apply that knowledge to a human body? Where to find the various organs and so on.

The internal layout is very similar, so - in broad terms - the answer would be "yes". Not a stupid question at all, C4

[Harry D]

If someone pushed me into a dark alleyway with a corpse, threw me a knife and told me I had five minutes to extract a major organ or they'd kill my family, squeamishness aside I'd probably make a right dog's dinner out of it. I can't see why some of the medical men thought the killer was a layman... unless there was an ulterior motive.

[curious4]

Hunters

How much difference is there between animal bodies and human ones? (That sounds stupid) but would someone with a knowledge of skinning and dressing, say deer, be able to apply that knowledge to a human body? Where to find the various organs and so on.

Best wishes
C4

[Wickerman]

I don't know how far past the first post you have ventured Sleuth, but if you read Prosector's posts up to, I think, the first five pages, you should find that 'new evidence' that might change your mind.

[Sleuth1888]

OK

Just to take a general point first. The killings (except the last) were done in semi-darkness, on the ground, in just a few minutes. To do complex things like extracting a kidney or a uterus in that time and under those circumstances takes exceptional skill and anatomical knowledge. Even George Bagster Phillips said that he doubted that he could have extracted Annie Chapman’s uterus in less than quarter of an hour and that a surgeon might have taken ‘the best part of an hour.’ The point that he could do it faster than most surgeons no doubt reflected the fact that he had nearly 30 years’ experience of carrying out autopsies.

For the benefit of anyone that hasn't had both hands inside a human abdomen before, simply getting at either the kidney or the uterus is incredibly difficult. You might know roughly where they are but the problem is you have a mass of slippery, writhing intestines in the way and as much as you try to push them aside, the more they flop back into the middle and down into the pelvis which is where you need to be if you wish to get at the uterus.

What you have to do is a manoeuvre known to surgeons, anatomists and pathologists as mobilisation of the small bowel. This involves making a slit in the root of the mesentery which lies behind the bowels and this then enables you to lift the small intestines out of the abdomen and gives you a clearer field. Jack did this in the case of Chapman and Eddowes (hence the bowels being draped over the right shoulders). Dividing the root of the mesentery single handed is very difficult since you are operating one handed and blind. Usually an assistant wound be using both hands to retract the guts so that the operator can get a clearer view of it.

That's probably enough for one post - see what I mean about needing a few hours?

Prosector

My own view (subject to change on account of new evidence ) is that the Ripper had no notable anatomical or medico/surgical knowledge whatsoever.

It's not so hard to imagine that, using the slash and grab method, the Ripper would have chanced upon the organs (namely uterus and kidney) eventually. After his frenzied ripping it's easy to see how he could have just picked up or selected an organ at random and walked off making his escape.