Did he have anatomical knowledge?

[Karl]

CSTHERINE EdDOWES. He cut around her navel whi h made me wonder how much of a light source he must have had (since he was able to see the navel to cut around it).

One could easily feel the navel, surely. But not being a surgeon myself, I must confess ignorance as to the significance of this action. He cut around her navel - to what end? He made a right mess of her intestines, didn't he?

[Wickerman]

I lean toward medical, as there is evidence he had this experience, like how the killer cut around the navel for example.

Not forgetting the other two points of equal significance:

1 - Where a section of colon was removed and the sigmoid flexure was invaginated into the rectum.

Our surgeon explained that this is precisely what surgeons & pathologists do when they have to remove the descending colon. Which is done to stop faeces from oozing back into the abdominal cavity.

2 - The careful removal of a kidney, located at the rear of the body and enveloped within a fatty membrane is something that comes with experience. Removing the descending colon in order to access this organ is not the kind of procedure that comes to someone who has no medical training.

All three points taken together suggest to me this killer was no stranger to the medical profession.

[Karl]

Not forgetting the other two points of equal significance:

1 - Where a section of colon was removed and the sigmoid flexure was invaginated into the rectum.

Our surgeon explained that this is precisely what surgeons & pathologists do when they have to remove the descending colon. Which is done to stop faeces from oozing back into the abdominal cavity.

But there was plenty of feces present. Also, was the sigmoid flexure invaginated into the rectum as a deliberate act, or could this have happened naturally? After all, more than just being a surgical procedure (was it back then?), it is also a medical condition which may occur naturally for a number of reasons. Is it known whether Eddows was suffering from the symptoms of said condition? This would include nausea, vomiting and intermittent abdominal pain.

2 - The careful removal of a kidney, located at the rear of the body and enveloped within a fatty membrane is something that comes with experience. Removing the descending colon in order to access this organ is not the kind of procedure that comes to someone who has no medical training.

But would an amateur not notice that the intestines were in the way when trying to access the organs underneath? If the intestines kept falling back into the cavity, would an amateur not think to simply remove them first? Would this not easily include the descending colon if he wished to get to the kidneys?

[Karl]

After all, more than just being a surgical procedure (was it back then?)

A preliminary search gives the answer "possibly", but I find it unlikely. I found this with the almighty Google:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1387069/?page=1

The telescoping or invaginating technic [sic] is one such method that has been successfully used but never widely acclaimed. Most users of the technic have been enthusiastic about and more than a few have claimed the procedure outdates its experimental research history. Moore and Forrest-Hamilton reported that Sonnenburg, in Berlin, first used an end-to-end ileo-colic anastomosis, before the turn of the century. Unfortunately, he never published his results and Maylard, unaware of Sonnenburg's discovery, practiced the same technic in Scotland around 1910. In their procedure, ileum was invaginated into a longitudinal incision in the colon.

In short, if the technique was in use in 1888, it would have been a brand new technique and it would have been recognised as such at the post mortem if it were at all known in London. If not known in London, perhaps we could add Sonnenburg to the list of suspects?

[Robert St Devil]

One could easily feel the navel, surely. But not being a surgeon myself, I must confess ignorance as to the significance of this action. He cut around her navel - to what end? He made a right mess of her intestines, didn't he?

You would have to resolve his positioning since most believe that he is right handed. The cut circles her navel to her right side. Meaning he had his hands crossed up if he had his left on her navel. Not impossible but in the realm of probability... Meh! It could work if he was standing straddling above her while facing in the direction of her feet.

[Karl]

You would have to resolve his positioning since most believe that he is right handed. The cut circles her navel to her right side. Meaning he had his hands crossed up if he had his left on her navel. Not impossible but in the realm of probability... Meh! It could work if he was standing straddling above her while facing in the direction of her feet.

Ambidexterity is, of course, a possibility. But looking at the post-mortem picture, where she is stitched up, it looks more like the cut is on the other side of the navel: her left, but the killer's right. And that is also what the post-mortem says:

"The abdominal walls were divided in the middle line to within a quarter of an inch of the navel. The cut then took a horizontal course for two inches and a half towards the right side. It then divided round the navel on the left side [her left], and made a parallel incision to the former horizontal incision, leaving the navel on a tongue of skin. Attached to the navel was two and a half inches of the lower part of the rectus muscle on the left side of the abdomen. The incision then took an oblique direction to the right and was shelving. The incision went down the right side of the vagina and rectum for half an inch behind the rectum."

[Richard Patterson]

Did the Ripper Have Medical Skill

Here is Chapter 15, from my book, 'Francis Thompson - Ripper Suspect'. It gives one explanation for why the Jack the Ripper might have had anatomical knowledge.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Method & Madness
The fairest things in life are Death and Birth, and of these two the fairer thing is Death.’

Francis Thompson

The belief that the murderer had medical knowledge was a theme that ran through the entire investigation. The belief that the killer understood human anatomy and possessed great skill in surgical operations was arrived at by the testimonies of many experts. Those of the legal profession thought so. In summing up the evidence the coroner, Wynne Edwin Baxter, for the inquest of the 2nd murder victim, Annie Chapman said, ‘the injuries had been made by someone who had considerable anatomical skill and knowledge. There were no meaningless cuts. The organ had been taken by one who knew where to find it, what difficulties he would have to contend against, and how he should use his knife so as to abstract the organ without injury to it.’

The medical profession agreed that the killer had surgical skill. Dr George Bagster Phillips, the police surgeon who had examined Annie Chapman’s, concluded that the wounds could have been done by, ‘such an instrument as a medical man used for post-mortem purposes… the mode in which the knife had been used seemed to indicate great anatomical knowledge.’

Dr Frederick Gordon Brown also believed the Ripper had anatomical skill. He performed the post-mortem for the third murder victim, Catherine Eddowes, and said, ‘I believe the perpetrator of the act must have had considerable knowledge of the positions of the organs in the abdominal cavity and the way of removing them. The parts removed would be of no use for any professional purpose. It required a great deal of medical knowledge to have removed the kidney and to know where it was placed.’
 
The press concurred with these opinions. The most respected paper, the ‘Times’ also reported, 'The injuries had been made by someone who had considerable anatomical skill and knowledge…There were no meaningless cuts. The organ had been taken by one who knew where to find it, what difficulties he would have to contend against and how he should use his knife so as to abstract the organ without injury to it. No unskilled person could have known were to find it or have recognised it when found. For instance no slaughter of animals could have carried out these operations. It must have been some one accustomed to the post mortem room.'

The police believed the same thing. Sir Robert Anderson, Commissioner to the CID, from August 31 1888 onwards, wrote of the Ripper, 'One thing is certain, namely, the elusive assassin whoever he was, possessed anatomical knowledge. This, therefore, leads one pretty surely to the conclusion that he was a medical man, or one who had formerly been a medical student.'

Despite much discussion, during and immediately after the murders, that the Ripper was a doctor or medical student, today many consider that the final word on the matter rests with Dr Thomas Bond. He was the esteemed doctor who examined the last Ripper victim, Mary Kelly. He quashed the medical student hypothesis when he wrote,

‘In each case the mutilation was inflicted by a person who had no scientific nor anatomical knowledge. In my opinion he does not even possess the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse slaughterer or any person accustomed to cut up dead animals.’

In 1888, Dr Thomas bond, at the age of 47, was considered an authority on the medical aspects for homicides. His decision was partly based on the fact that the murderer removed organs from his victims. When the doctor trained at London’s King’s College Hospital, between 1860 and 1865, this was unheard of. Although it is now the standard procedure of pathologists today, when Bond was a medical student it was not the practice to remove organs. It was the pioneering work of the German pathologist Rudolf Virchow that saw organ removal become part of modern pathology, but when in 1888 the Ripper was taking away kidneys, and uteruses the procedure taught to do had not yet extended beyond Manchester’s Owens College. It was here that Thompson had been taught. It was his lecturer of pathology and his infirmary director, Doctor Julius Dreschfeld that had first begun to teach in England the idea that determining cause of death was better accomplished by not treating the body as a whole but by the examination of individual organs. This theory is now standard practice but at the time it was a new and radical idea. Francis Thompson, when he studied from 1878 till 1884, would have been the first to learn treating each organ as separate entities. It was only in 1880, a few short years, before the murders and well after Bond had finished studying, that Virchow first published, in Philadelphia, an English translation of his German book on post-mortem technique, ‘Post-Mortem Examination with especial reference to medical-legal practice’

Although available to Thompson, this 145 page textbook, complete with illustrations, would not have been found on the shelves of Dr Bond’s college library when twenty years earlier he was a medical student. If Bond had read it he would have seen how it accords with his own findings on the mutilations of Mary Kelly. Virchow wrote in his book on how a good student should remove the heart.

‘To bring the heart into the right position for the dissection, when the incisions for the right side are to be made, I extend firmly the forefinger of the left hand, and push it under the heart, and keep it against the base, so that the ventricular portion hangs down over the forefinger, which is as a fulcrum to it.’

To perform this heart removal the pericardium, which was the layer holding it in place, had first to be cut through. When Dr Bond wrote, in his post mortem of Mary Kelly, ‘The Pericardium was open below & the heart absent,’ and described a procedure straight out of Virchow’s textbook, his own medical training would have brought him to the mistaken but logical conclusion that such an act had nothing to do with any profession. Not slaughter men and certainly not doctors.

Although the removal of body organs was a feature of the Ripper murders as well as the new Virchow technique, there were deviations. If the Ripper, like Thompson, had been taught Virchow, this could be explained by the strange circumstances in which the techniques of Virchow were performed. Having to alter how the organs were collected by different incisions was not only allowed in Virchow’s teaching, but also actively encouraged. In his book Virchow wrote, ‘It is scarcely necessary to point out that there are many cases in which deviations from this method are not merely allowable, but also absolutely necessary. The individuality of the case must often determine the plan of the examination.’

Francis Thompson, aged just 28, at the time of the murders, had not just the training of one doctor, but because he delayed leaving medical school by four more years, he had the training of three. The Ripper performed cuts that removed internal organs on five prostitutes with only one knife, in the dark and under time constraint. Such a feat with a a dissecting scalpel, for Thompson, would have been difficult but not impossible. That a single knife was used for all cuts was the opinion of most of the medical experts involved in the Ripper case. Use of just one knife was something Virchow himself praised. In his medical textbook, Virchow wrote of its merit, ‘a good pathological anatomist is perfectly able to dissect all the viscera of one subject, or even of two, with one knife’ All the other doctors who examined the victims, were aged in their 40’s to 60’s and, like Bond, would have been untrained in Virchow. To them the use of one knife and nature of the mutilations would have appeared insensible. They would see no reason to remove a heart for example. Most people, and most murderers, would never contemplate doing so, but the Ripper did. Thompson did. In his poem ‘The House of Sorrows’, he writes.


'The life-gashed heart, the assassin's healing poinard [knife] draw..
The remedy of steel has gone home to her sick heart.
Her breast, dishabited,
Revealed her heart above,
A little blot of red.'

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Richard Patterson;374329]

To them the use of one knife and nature of the mutilations would have appeared insensible. They would see no reason to remove a heart for example. Most people, and most murderers, would never contemplate doing so, but the Ripper did. Thompson did.

Hi and congratulations on your work.

Serial killer Popkov did remove a heart:

"Mikhail Popkov sliced the head of one of his victims and carved the heart out of another during a twisted series of murders in Russia."

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-n...killer-5866206

He was not a doctor and still had the sufficient "anatomical knowledge".

Regards, Pierre

[Mayerling]

In 1888, how much did schools in England (not medical schools, but schools) teach students biology and anatomy? And would such schools be available for the average denizen of Whitechapel, etc. to pick up such knowledge. Keep in mind this is not for specialist in odd businesses, like the religious shockets who are sometimes considered as suspects.

Jeff

[ChrisGeorge]

Francis Thompson, aged just 28, at the time of the murders, had not just the training of one doctor, but because he delayed leaving medical school by four more years, he had the training of three. The Ripper performed cuts that removed internal organs on five prostitutes with only one knife, in the dark and under time constraint. Such a feat with a a dissecting scalpel, for Thompson, would have been difficult but not impossible. That a single knife was used for all cuts was the opinion of most of the medical experts involved in the Ripper case. Use of just one knife was something Virchow himself praised. In his medical textbook, Virchow wrote of its merit, ‘a good pathological anatomist is perfectly able to dissect all the viscera of one subject, or even of two, with one knife’ All the other doctors who examined the victims, were aged in their 40’s to 60’s and, like Bond, would have been untrained in Virchow. To them the use of one knife and nature of the mutilations would have appeared insensible. They would see no reason to remove a heart for example. Most people, and most murderers, would never contemplate doing so, but the Ripper did. Thompson did. In his poem ‘The House of Sorrows’, he writes.


'The life-gashed heart, the assassin's healing poinard [knife] draw..
The remedy of steel has gone home to her sick heart.
Her breast, dishabited,
Revealed her heart above,
A little blot of red.'

Hi Richard

My argument against the Ripper having been a doctor is where would be the thrill for someone who cuts people up all the time? The same argument applies to someone who was a failed doctor, such as Francis Thompson.

Okay, so this rather odd individual had surgical skill, but that isn't necessarily a qualification for him having been the Whitechapel murderer even if members of the public, without much thought about it, think it is.

Best regards

Chris

[packers stem]

[QUOTE=Pierre;374410]

Hi and congratulations on your work.

Serial killer Popkov did remove a heart:

"Mikhail Popkov sliced the head of one of his victims and carved the heart out of another during a twisted series of murders in Russia."

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-n...killer-5866206

He was not a doctor and still had the sufficient "anatomical knowledge".

Regards, Pierre

Hi Pierre
We all know fairly accurately where the heart is located.
This is not the case with the well concealed kidney

[Pierre]

In 1888, how much did schools in England (not medical schools, but schools) teach students biology and anatomy? And would such schools be available for the average denizen of Whitechapel, etc. to pick up such knowledge. Keep in mind this is not for specialist in odd businesses, like the religious shockets who are sometimes considered as suspects.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

and what sort of men, from which professions, would be able (or even obliged) to be present at autopsies?

Regards, Pierre

[Richard Patterson]

[QUOTE=Pierre;374410]

Hi and congratulations on your work.

Serial killer Popkov did remove a heart:

"Mikhail Popkov sliced the head of one of his victims and carved the heart out of another during a twisted series of murders in Russia."

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-n...killer-5866206

He was not a doctor and still had the sufficient "anatomical knowledge".

Regards, Pierre

Thanks you. 'most murderers, would never contemplate doing so,' Counter examples, like Popkov in the 1990's, can be given. The Aztecs most probably engaged in millions of heart removals. Most murderers do not.

[Richard Patterson]

Hi Richard

My argument against the Ripper having been a doctor is where would be the thrill for someone who cuts people up all the time? The same argument applies to someone who was a failed doctor, such as Francis Thompson.

Okay, so this rather odd individual had surgical skill, but that isn't necessarily a qualification for him having been the Whitechapel murderer even if members of the public, without much thought about it, think it is.

Best regards

Chris

Hi Christopher,

Where would the thrill be? I am not sure how being a failed doctor or successful doctor causes a direct variance in the thrills. Should I assume that no qualifications were needed to have been the Whitechapel murderer?

When Mary Kelly was murdered, Thompson's home was less than 100 yards away. His only reason for roaming those streets at night was that he was looking for a prostitute. In one of his coat pockets was his poem on hunting and disemboweling them so he could find and kill their fetuses. In the other was his razor sharp dissecting knife, that he had trained for years with to make the exact same wounds on the victims. If someone needs to be more qualified than Thompson, their resume must be very impressive.

[Michael W Richards]

.... The Ripper performed cuts that removed internal organs on five prostitutes with only one knife,.... in the dark and under time constraint.

Hi Richard,

Im interested to know who you believe these 5 women were, since within the Canonical Group, only 3 of the Five lost internal organs to the murderer.