Did he have anatomical knowledge?

[Abby Normal]

Thankyou Gwyneth, yes she is a little apprehensive. Ann already had heart surgery a couple of years ago so she may end up with one continuous 'zipper' now right down the middle.

Hi wick
I too wish you and your wife the best on her surgery.

[Wickerman]

Thankyou Abby, I'll pass that on.

[curious4]

Buttons and bones

Hi Gwynneth

In Dr Brown's testimony it just says buttons I think...but I seem to recall that she was wearing mens lace-up boots and they don't generally have buttons...

Much of the clothing was cut in front too so if there were buttons in the way they probably got sprayed about!

All the best

Dave

Hello Dave,

From the inquest: "three small black buttons, such as are generally used for boots, a small metal button".

Doesn't say what colour metal button, but there were brown metal buttons on her dress.

Best wishes,

Gwyneth

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Gwynneth...oh ok...your recollection's obviously a good deal clearer than mine was!

I've just checked up in the Sourcebook and she was indeed wearing men's lace-up boots though...suggesting maybe the boot buttons were part of the odd possessions she was carrying round with her...interesting they should be scattered differently...

All the best

Dave

[curious4]

Sorry!

Hi Gwynneth...oh ok...your recollection's obviously a good deal clearer than mine was!

I've just checked up in the Sourcebook and she was indeed wearing men's lace-up boots though...suggesting maybe the boot buttons were part of the odd possessions she was carrying round with her...interesting they should be scattered differently...

All the best

Dave

Hello Dave,

Sorry, meant to say that you were right about the boots! Blame it on the hot weather!

Cheers,
Gwyneth

[RivkahChaya]

If they were, in fact, lace-up boots, then they probably had round-headed hooks up the ankles, which is the same way that boots for the US military are made-- or, at least were through the year 2000. I think ice skates lace that way.

Hooks:



Now, I don't know what people called those hooks. Maybe they called them "boot buttons." We called them "speed hooks," because boots that had them were called "speed lacers," (pun on "Speed Racer"), because they could be put on much faster than an older style of boot while had eyelets all the way up the ankle.

Shoes with buttons existed, though. They were dressier, and not something people in the East End would tend to wear. These are for sale on eBay



and according to the seller, and genuine antiques, not modern copies for a costume. You can see they have real buttons, that look a lot like clothing buttons. The difference, as far as I know, is that they were attached to leather not by thread, but more the way metal fly buttons on jeans are riveted, and difficult to button with your fingers, so people used button hooks to close their shoes. My mother says that Mary Jane shoes for little girls still had button closures on the strap over the top of the foot, and it had to be closed with a button hook. By the time I had shoes like that, they buckled.

It's possible that shoe buttons may have been worth something, so if you found on one the street, you picked it up and kept it, and Eddowes could have had shoe buttons in her pocket. I suppose it's also possible that a lace-up boot had some kind of button-over cover for the top of the laces, to keep the loops from getting caught on things.

[Errata]

It's possible that shoe buttons may have been worth something, so if you found on one the street, you picked it up and kept it, and Eddowes could have had shoe buttons in her pocket. I suppose it's also possible that a lace-up boot had some kind of button-over cover for the top of the laces, to keep the loops from getting caught on things.

Shoe buttons are quite small. About the size of collar buttons on mens shirts. So they may not have been shoe buttons, but small buttons that are of the size of shoe buttons. Kate had a man in her life. she may have kept buttons he popped in order to sew them back on. Or it's possible that one of her skirts had buttons, but I'm not sure why they would be so small.

It's not that buttons are valuable, it's that buying new buttons was probably not only a luxury to these women, but the odds of finding a good match are pretty slim, which everybody who's had to replace a button has found out. Even I keep buttons. They may have been in one of her many little pouches.

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Rivkah

I suspect they'd probably be more akin to the Trench Boot before Pershing improved it...quite possibly badly worn or even patched with lino inside...We're talking low working classes here...the sort who "oop north" would probably be wearing clogs...

Certainly the pictures I've seen of childrens charities boot days seem to show discarded footwear more akin to that sort of standard.

As regards the ladies boots you show, I don't suppose you'd have seen many of those round the East End...unless they was nicked!

All the best

Dave

[RivkahChaya]

As regards the ladies boots you show, I don't suppose you'd have seen many of those round the East End...unless they was nicked!

That was my point: I think shoe with buttons were for the rich. You probably have to have softer leather, and metal rivets, plus, buttons may not have been as valuable as jewels, but they were probably more expensive than laces.

Also, and I'm just guessing, but laced shoes or boots were adjustable to the width and proportion of the wearer, while buttoned shoes look like they fit just one way. I suspect buttoned shoes were custom made, or at any rate, the buttons were put on for the specific purchaser (sort of the way that there's a halfway point between clothes straight off the rack, and completely custom-made, in the stores that sell ready-made stuff, but do alterations for the purchaser).

I'm pretty sure that while most skirts didn't button all the way down, they had a couple of buttons at the waist.

[Michael W Richards]

I read the post by Ben which is intended to downplay the fact that the early kills suggested some surgical skill and anatomical knowledge. Bens argument is that 1 physician made that claim, discounting of course that the coroner agreed with him at those Inquests.

Well, I suggest that the answer is much easier than it is being made out to be.......did the police solicit information on Medical Students from teaching hospitals after Annie Chapmans murder? Yes or No?

If you said no then you obviously havent read enough on this subject. And if you said yes then you can clearly see that many more people than just one physician accepted that premise about the killer.

The problem here is that none of the remaining 3 Canonicals show that same kind of skill or technique. So thats why we have a skilled/not skilled profile for the killer...people keep insisting on grouping all 5 of the 5 murders together,......and to do so requires that you discount the skill and techniques suppositions on the early murders, because people do not lose their abilities between murders.

The more obvious answer is that different people could easily address that issue, some skilled, some not.

Cheers

[Michael W Richards]

If you are interested there were quite a few potential suspects being looked at in September, along with Ludwig...anatomical knowledge, carried razors....and Puckeridge...anatomical knowledge and knife skills.....there were 3 medical students being watched by Abberline. There was also the very interesting Jacod Isenschmid...both skill sets.

Problem with Jacob...he could have only committed murder up until the time of his institutionalization, and the last in the Canonical Group is beyond that date.

The point being is that the police and the medical experts demonstrate by their actions in September 1888 that they believed the killer they sought possessed skills.....specific skills that would allow him to do what was done to the women in near dark and quickly. They felt that med students and butchers were among the possibles.

We know that the police sought men with skills, the medical expert at more Canonical autopsies said so about the first 2 murders, so the real question is did this man somehow lose his abilities over a few weeks? Or is it more probable that when you see things that are unlike then they are likely not the same.

Cheers

[Hunter]

Yes, Mike, the police did solicit information on medical students following the murder of Annie Chapman based on a report submitted to them by H Division Surgeon Bagster Phillips. His was the only medical opinion they had on that murder. That would change. And even after the 'double event' Abberline was still pursuing that line, even though the list of possible suspects had expanded to include "a hunter, a butcher, a slaughterman, as well as a student in surgery or a properly qualified surgeon." And there's evidence that Phillips' opinion was not what many seem to believe. As mentioned by me in a previous post, Swanson's Nov. 6 HO report sheds some light on it. You may want to read it when you get a chance.


Phillips ascribed anatomical knowledge to the killer of Annie Chapman. Brown attributed the same to the killer of Eddowes. Both stopped short of ascribing medical skill to the murderer in either. In fact, when asked about the knife used in the mutilations on Chapman, Phillips did not believe it to be anything carried in a post-mortem case but did entertain the notion of a slaughterer's knife "well ground down."

The only thing that suggests more is the Lancet article, and they may have mixed Wynne Baxter's asumptions in with Phillips' description of the injuries... For it was Wynne Baxter who actually proposed that the killer may have had medical credentials of some sort.

[Hunter]

We know that the police sought men with skills, the medical expert at more Canonical autopsies said so about the first 2 murders, so the real question is did this man somehow lose his abilities over a few weeks? Or is it more probable that when you see things that are unlike then they are likely not the same.

Phillips gave no opinion on the medical evidence concerning the Nichols murder and there is no record of whether he included Eddowes with Chapman or not.

If I am incorrect... them prove me so.

[caz]

Hi Mike,

We have heard from Prosector that whoever took out Eddowes's kidney (and chose to skirt round her navel when making the vertical cut), and whoever took out Kelly's heart, did so in ways that indicate learned or observed techniques, making it unlikely - despite what Bond thought - that the killer in either case had no abilities, or had 'lost' them since Hanbury St if the same man. Remember, we are still not talking about the skill of an experienced surgeon here in any of the cases, just the necessary dexterity with a sharp knife, and the necessary anatomical knowledge, to do what was achieved on each occasion.

It's possible, however, that the same man was growing more knife happy or desperate as the murders progressed, and/or he simply had to adapt to the different circumstances, locations, victims's clothing etc.

Love,

Caz

X

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Mike,

We have heard from Prosector that whoever took out Eddowes's kidney (and chose to skirt round her navel when making the vertical cut), and whoever took out Kelly's heart, did so in ways that indicate learned or observed techniques, making it unlikely - despite what Bond thought - that the killer in either case had no abilities, or had 'lost' them since Hanbury St if the same man. Remember, we are still not talking about the skill of an experienced surgeon here in any of the cases, just the necessary dexterity with a sharp knife to do what was achieved on each occasion.

It's possible, however, that the same man was growing more knife happy or desperate as the murders progressed, and/or he simply had to adapt to the different circumstances, locations, victims's clothing etc.

Love,

Caz

X

Hi Caz

So now you are inferring that the medical skill was even more enhanced by the navel incision and the surgical removal of the organs.

I have to say that as this progresses it becomes even more farcical to suggest the killer removed these organs at the crime scene in 5 mins or less and carried out a precise incision around the abdomen.

To carry out that navel incision around the umbillicus would have been even more difficult having regards to the stab wounds to her abdomen initially inflicted by the killer, and how precise the killer would have to have been to carry out that incision not to mention the time he would have needed.

The umbilicus incision could have been made by whoever removed the organs at the mortuary. Remember there was no such incision made on Chapman or Nicholls.

And to remove a uterus there would be no need to remove the intestines someone with medical knowledge would have known that

And for the record I am not suggesting a mortuary keeper as being responsible.