Was Syphilis the cause of JtR's insanity and motive?

[Patrick Differ]

Hi RD - I respectfully disagree with your Syphilis assessment regarding physical strength because it depends on the Stage of the disease. These women were throttled first and it strikes me that Nichols, Chapman, Stride and Eddowes were found at or near a Wall. The left hand over the mouth and face and right hand on the neck or both hands on the neck a Man of average strength could render a weaker person unconscious within 10 seconds. A Man with powerful arms and upper body strength like a butcher, dock worker, etc. as you describe, would have no issues with the throttle. They could have also used the Wall as leverage.
Syphilis destroys the body but it depends on stage and how physically fit the person is , and how the disease is treated. In most cases during that time, especially in the lower classes, there was no treatment. It took many lives at very early and it could act like a fast growing cancer where a person appears healthy and the within 2 months they are gone.

[chubbs]

I don't want to say "likely" because there is no way to know, but certainly it is reasonable. End-stage syphilis is one way to (somewhat) explain these murders and their rather abrupt cessation. Jacob Levy is a good suspect in this vein.

...as is William Henry Bury - and we KNOW he murdered a woman and carved her stomach open. He definitely didn't like contracting his STi and giving it to his wife.

Edit: The fact that it was his wife that he murdered a few months after contracting the disease is also interesting. Maybe the STi was syphilis, which was increasingly eating away at his sanity?.