Did he have anatomical knowledge?

[Errata]

Interesting...so do you think Liz Jackson was not killed during an abortion and this could have been a misunderstanding by the coroner that a killer was dismembering /eviscerating women

There's really no reason for an abortionist to cut up a body. Most try herbal remedies first, abortifacients. And yes they can cause death, but it's the same kind of death as a miscarriage. So it's not suspicious. Those that pierce the embryonic sac or puncture the fetus have a much higher chance of being found out, since that leaves unnatural evidence. But I would think simply abandoning the body would suffice to not get caught. With no real forensics, there might be a hue and cry for a couple of weeks, but it dies down.

What I honestly think happened is that someone stole the baby. First of all, The math doesn't fit the fetus found. Liz Jackson's uterus was 10 inches long, which would put her at 26 weeks, but she was petite and malnourished. She was likely actually closer to 30 weeks, with an undersized fetus. The 20 week fetus in a jar did not come from an almost 30 week pregnant woman. And I doubt they screwed up on the development of the fetus, because one major difference between 20 weeks and 26 weeks is the development of eyes. If the baby had eyes, it was 26 weeks or older. Big visible marker to age a fetus. Doesn't even require an autopsy.

30 weeks is a viable fetus. Even back then it had a more than 50% shot at surviving. I think someone killed her and took her baby. I think they were likely crazy and desperate, and felt they could not wait for her to be closer to term. It's also possible that if she was very thin, she looked more pregnant than she was. I think the baby that Liz Jackson's baby replaced went down the river in a jar, where it had been since the mother expelled it. I also think that the Jackson's baby also likely didn't live to be a year old. Replacement children are usually murdered by the people that took them. Assuming it even lived more that a day past birth. But I think the baby was alive when removed from the body. The uterus was mostly intact and the cord was cut.

Crazy women cutting babies out of pregnant women seems like a new thing, but it isn't.

[RockySullivan]

I imagine that a pickle jar would be a staple in any butcher shop while a doctor would be more likely to have jars specific for medical specimens?

[Amanda]

But if Cream cut up a prostitute, it was his background as a surgeon that was helping him, not his background as an abortionist. Abortionists do not require surgical skills. They may have had them, but not because they studied up to be an abortionist. And the lion's share of doctors performing abortion services were not servicing the destitute. They were not operating in Whitechapel really at all. Whitechapel had older women who were midwives performing abortions with drugs and needles. Doctors weren't going to make enough money off of the women in Whitechapel to risk murder charges.

Hi Errata,
Think you misunderstood me. The point I was making was that surgeons did make money doing abortions, occasionally. As in America in the 1880's, there were doctors and surgeons who practised 'under the cloak' so to speak & would be called in by the midwives/local abortionist women when a patient showed signs of complications.
I did not suggest that abortionists had surgical knowledge.
Amanda

[Trevor Marriott]

Interesting...so do you think Liz Jackson was not killed during an abortion and this could have been a misunderstanding by the coroner that a killer was dismembering /eviscerating women

When you look at it, if a woman died whilst in the hands of a back street abortionist. The were hardly likely to report the death to the police would they. They would need to get rid of the body. A female abortionist could hardly wrap the body up and drag it to some secluded spot and dump it.

Needs must when the devil calls !

[RockySullivan]

But if Cream cut up a prostitute, it was his background as a surgeon that was helping him, not his background as an abortionist. Abortionists do not require surgical skills. They may have had them, but not because they studied up to be an abortionist. And the lion's share of doctors performing abortion services were not servicing the destitute. They were not operating in Whitechapel really at all. Whitechapel had older women who were midwives performing abortions with drugs and needles. Doctors weren't going to make enough money off of the women in Whitechapel to risk murder charges.

Interesting...so do you think Liz Jackson was not killed during an abortion and this could have been a misunderstanding by the coroner that a killer was dismembering /eviscerating women

[Errata]

I think it would be presumptuous to group abortionists in a separate category to surgeons. Take Cream, just as an example, he was a qualified surgeon but practised as an abortionist through choice because it was a lucrative business.

We're talking 19th century here and people, doctors included, were always on the lookout for a way to earn some extra cash. That's why Burke & Hare were digging up bodies.
Amanda

But if Cream cut up a prostitute, it was his background as a surgeon that was helping him, not his background as an abortionist. Abortionists do not require surgical skills. They may have had them, but not because they studied up to be an abortionist. And the lion's share of doctors performing abortion services were not servicing the destitute. They were not operating in Whitechapel really at all. Whitechapel had older women who were midwives performing abortions with drugs and needles. Doctors weren't going to make enough money off of the women in Whitechapel to risk murder charges.

[Trevor Marriott]

An abortionist had medical knowledge but no skill. A surgeon could perform an abortion in a hospital setting, but remember that people performing abortion in the streets where using knitting needles. Thus the high mortality rate. They wouldn't recognize a uterus if it slapped them in the face. And they certainly did not use any cutting skills in their profession, unless the mother was dead.

Then they cut the bodies up into pieces wrapped the pieces up in parcels and disposed of them either in the Thames or in other likely spots.

Fooling people 126 years later to suspect they had been victims of a serial killer

[Rosella]

Burke and Hare though were operating sixty years before the Ripper and were paid for fresh corpses because surgeons needed bodies to teach anatomy. The medical profession was a great deal more regulated in the 1880's than it had been in the 1820's. I think the police did investigate people with a medical background, like the medical students who had gone insane, in their hunt for the Ripper, as well as dodgy doctors.

[Amanda]

But...

An abortionist had medical knowledge but no skill. A surgeon could perform an abortion in a hospital setting, but remember that people performing abortion in the streets where using knitting needles. Thus the high mortality rate. They wouldn't recognize a uterus if it slapped them in the face. And they certainly did not use any cutting skills in their profession, unless the mother was dead.

I think it would be presumptuous to group abortionists in a separate category to surgeons. Take Cream, just as an example, he was a qualified surgeon but practised as an abortionist through choice because it was a lucrative business.

We're talking 19th century here and people, doctors included, were always on the lookout for a way to earn some extra cash. That's why Burke & Hare were digging up bodies.
Amanda

[Errata]

I know it's a played out theory but since Elizabeth Jackson was said to be killed during an abortion and a fetus was in a pickle jar those two thing point to an abortion doctor. A abortion dr is one person who would be familiar with territory . Could the ripper have been one? Not that the c5 where getting abortions but perhaps a doctor who was also serial killer?

An abortionist had medical knowledge but no skill. A surgeon could perform an abortion in a hospital setting, but remember that people performing abortion in the streets where using knitting needles. Thus the high mortality rate. They wouldn't recognize a uterus if it slapped them in the face. And they certainly did not use any cutting skills in their profession, unless the mother was dead.

[GUT]

I know it's a played out theory but since Elizabeth Jackson was said to be killed during an abortion and a fetus was in a pickle jar those two thing point to an abortion doctor. A abortion dr is one person who would be familiar with territory . Could the ripper have been one? Not that the c5 where getting abortions but perhaps a doctor who was also serial killer?

It's possible, but so are many things, it would need to be fleshed out a long way to actually persuade me though.

[RockySullivan]

I know it's a played out theory but since Elizabeth Jackson was said to be killed during an abortion and a fetus was in a pickle jar those two thing point to an abortion doctor. A abortion dr is one person who would be familiar with territory . Could the ripper have been one? Not that the c5 where getting abortions but perhaps a doctor who was also serial killer?

[RockySullivan]

Absolutely agree. Without much new information, people have been deconstructing old arguments until they fit their theories. It may be time to synthesize things again.

Mike

Perhaps but I noticed something when reading the rumbelows ripper book. When the author describes Hutchs account of the Mary Kelly sighting...it was so shocking to me how the author didn't remark on Hutchs account as suspicious. He's said to have stood outside for nearly an hour...and how anyone would not comment on how suspect this is is beyond me. Yet for a long time...Hutch was not viewed as suspicious...similar to cross...from what I can tell. It seems they are both more recent suspects. So I think the more we learn about serial killer behaviours in the past decades since many of this canonical ripper books have been published....the better profile we get...and we also know to look for the ripper as a "sociopath" rather than a psycho nut fresh from the asylum.

[The Good Michael]

The most likely solution is not new ideas, but new information.

Absolutely agree. Without much new information, people have been deconstructing old arguments until they fit their theories. It may be time to synthesize things again.

Mike

[Wickerman]

The most likely solution is not new ideas, but new information.

Arguments have been going round in circles for over a decade. New ideas are not the answer because they can only come from speculation, and we have enough of that already.
What is needed is more accurate information to complement what we already possess.