Jack: Suffering from a brain disease?

[John Wheat]

Suspect he was an Aspie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome#Motor_and_sensory_perception

Doubt his manual dexterity was impaired. Possibly just the opposite.

To DJA

What leads you to believe Jack was an Aspie?

Cheers John

[John Wheat]

Comorbid with schizoaffective disorder?

I have a hard time wrapping my brain around this possibility, and it's because my cousin has AS and I've learned a lot about it through him. But mostly I've learned how little the description of the diagnosis actually applies to them. It's a real crap shoot as to what positives and negatives it gives them.

Trying to look at it dispassionately, I would think the sensory quirks would prevent someone from engaging in bloody murder. Texture and feel are big issues, and cutting into a body when you are hypersensitive to texture seems like folly. So I have a hard time picturing someone with AS digging into a body, especially for the first time. Also loud sudden sounds tend to be a problem, and there was the potential for screaming.

Certainly nothing about AS makes someone prone to being a killer.

To Errata

An excellent post, as someone who has what used to be usually called Asperger Syndrome now more commonly referred to as Autistic Spectrum Disorder I agree with you on all points.

If you ask me people get confused about an Autistic's inability to show empathy rather than a lack of empathy typical of a psychopath.

Cheers John

[Michael W Richards]

All you need is someone that is compromised by a lack of guilt or remorse, and some knife skills and anatomy knowledge. Naturally this doesn't apply in all 5 Canonical Cases, for one because only 3 women had organs taken, and in 2 possibly 3 cases the evident skill set and knowledge were absent.

[DJA]

mostly I've learned how little the description of the diagnosis actually applies to them. It's a real crap shoot as to what positives and negatives it gives them.

Trying to look at it dispassionately, I would think the sensory quirks would prevent someone from engaging in bloody murder. Texture and feel are big issues, and cutting into a body when you are hypersensitive to texture seems like folly. So I have a hard time picturing someone with AS digging into a body, especially for the first time. Also loud sudden sounds tend to be a problem, and there was the potential for screaming.

Certainly nothing about AS makes someone prone to being a killer.

Being an Aspie and reacting to a threat from these 5 women is,I believe the issue.

He quickly silences them in the most efficient and silent manner.
Stride is possibly the best example.

His sensory quirks ie texture and feel are his strengths as a physician.
He was known for it. Actually mentioned in one of his Obituaries.British Medical Journal.

As a pathologist,he is fascinated by his work.

When one of his long term patients puts themselves in harms way,he kills two birds with one stone.

Spent a lot of time on Wrong Planet. Excellent site.

Know several Aspies.
One lives diagonally across the road. Paedophile. Really.

Friend is Headmistress of a Special School.
Seen many of her pupils and spoken to parents.

[John Wheat]

Know several Aspies.
One lives diagonally across the road. Paedophile. Really.

To DJA

How exactly is the 'Aspie' who lives diagonally across from you a 'Padophile"? Have you seen him interfering with children or something?

Cheers John

[DJA]

To DJA

How exactly is the 'Aspie' who lives diagonally across from you a 'Padophile"? Have you seen him interfering with children or something?

Cheers John

Check your PMs.

Answered before your post.

[John Wheat]

To DJA

Thanks for the PM. I don't see what you're neighbour being an 'Aspie' has to do with him being a 'Paedophile'. I think your on the wrong track as far as Jack being an 'Aspie'. If Jack was an 'Aspie' and I very much doubt he was it wouldn't explain why he was a serial killer.

Cheers John

[Rosella]

Not a brain disease of course, but it would be interesting to know (though we never will) whether Jack received any injury or trauma to his left frontal lobe in his earlier years.

[DJA]

Suggesting Jack was an Aspie.

Not a serial killer. Technically.

The women were attempting to exploit him.

After a very long day at the London Hospital,he typically had a two Kilometre walk home late at night through a very dangerous area,along Hanbury Street and it's extensions.Right past Dr. Phillips house.

He was most likely armed with a blade.

Nichols spooked him.

Chapman tried a similar stunt.

Then Eddowes returned to claim a reward.

There wasn't one,especially under the circumstances.

She enlisted Stride.

Mary Ann Kelly instigated the whole thing.

[John G]

Being an Aspie and reacting to a threat from these 5 women is,I believe the issue.

He quickly silences them in the most efficient and silent manner.
Stride is possibly the best example.

His sensory quirks ie texture and feel are his strengths as a physician.
He was known for it. Actually mentioned in one of his Obituaries.British Medical Journal.

As a pathologist,he is fascinated by his work.

When one of his long term patients puts themselves in harms way,he kills two birds with one stone.

Spent a lot of time on Wrong Planet. Excellent site.

Know several Aspies.
One lives diagonally across the road. Paedophile. Really.

Friend is Headmistress of a Special School.
Seen many of her pupils and spoken to parents.

Aspergers' Syndrome, like schizophrenia, is quite possibly a socially/medical constructed condition, as evidenced by an absence of bio-medical support. It may therefore be a label attached to individuals who are deemed to have deviated from social norms.

As Molloy and Vasil postulate, "Does AS define a condition that exists 'out there' in a reality that is beyond language and the network of social and political forces involved in the process of defining normal and abnormal behaviour.?" (Molloy and Vasil, The Social Construction of Asperger Syndrome: The Pathologizing of Difference?, Disability and Society, vol 17, No 6, 2002, pp.659-669.)

Or as Allen Frances, the chair of the DSM IV puts it, "Fifty years of subsequent research confirms the DSM is no more than a catalogue of syndromes-social constructs, not diseases." See:http://m.anp.sagepub.com/content/48/11/1067.extract

[DJA]

Not a brain disease of course, but it would be interesting to know (though we never will) whether Jack received any injury or trauma to his left frontal lobe in his earlier years.

Grrr. Just lost my reply.

The two photos I have seem to show a cauliflower left ear.

Hair partly covers that.

Maybe a result of being bullied as a left handed Aspie by a right hander.

His father and uncle were master mariners. Baltic sea.

Mitre Street was close to the Baltic Exchange in Threadneedle Street.

Town house.

Possibly where Jack lived when studying and inherited.

[DJA]

Aspergers' Syndrome, like schizophrenia, is quite possibly a socially/medical constructed condition, as evidenced by an absence of bio-medical support.

You really don't exhibit much of an interest in Aspergers/Autism.

Various causes.

Gut permability means some partially digested proteins eg casein and gluten, are metabolised into polymorphous opoid like molecules.

Some schizophrenia is caused by Toxoplasmas eg T gondii AKA mad cat lady syndrome.

That has been known for close to twenty years.

[John G]

You really don't exhibit much of an interest in Aspergers/Autism.

Various causes.

Gut permability means some partially digested proteins eg casein and gluten, are metabolised into polymorphous opoid like molecules.

Some schizophrenia is caused by Toxoplasmas eg T gondii AKA mad cat lady syndrome.

That has been known for close to twenty years.

Please provide biomedical evidence of this. Please cite authority. As Allen Frances argues, "Schizophrenia is just a name not a thing-a useful social and medical construct..." See:http://m.anp.sagepub.com/content/48/11/1067.extract

By the way, he was the Chair of the DSM IV so I take it he knows what he's talking about.

I would also point out that no causal link has been demonstrated between toxoplasma and schizophrenia: so far from being "known for close to twenty years", it is merely a controversial theory. See:https://web.stanford.edu/class/humbi.../Analysis.html

[DJA]

Please provide biomedical evidence of this. Please cite authority. As Allen Frances argues, "Schizophrenia is just a name not a thing-a useful social and medical construct..." See:http://m.anp.sagepub.com/content/48/11/1067.extract

By the way, he was the Chair of the DSM IV so I take it he knows what he's talking about.

Crikey!

Not spending the weekend looking for it.

Did mention a Prof with over 20 years experience in my PM.
Also offered help if required.
Obviously not wanted.

Do agree that there are many forms of "Schizophrenia".
Mentioned one type that has a known cause and actually responds to what is basically a pesticide.

Some of the DSMs I've read are a bad joke.
One big con job after another.

Good luck!

[John G]

Crikey!

Not spending the weekend looking for it.

Did mention a Prof with over 20 years experience in my PM.
Also offered help if required.
Obviously not wanted.

Do agree that there are many forms of "Schizophrenia".
Mentioned one type that has a known cause and actually responds to what is basically a pesticide.

Some of the DSMs I've read are a bad joke.
One big con job after another.

Good luck!

To be fair, I don't blame you not wanting to spend the weekend looking up scientific studies! Essentially there are studies which demonstrate that exposure to T.gondii increases the risk of mental illness. However, whilst this is a possible risk factor for developing "schizophrenia", cause and effect cannot be proved. See:http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/06June/P...zophrenia.aspx

I agree that there are many different forms of what is commonly referred to as schizophrenia, some of which may eventually be found to have biomedical causes. As Frances puts it: " What we call 'schizophrenia' is a heterogeneous grab bag of symptoms and behaviours that overlap bewilderingly with its near neighbours, both with clinical presentation and on biological markers. There will not be one or a group of schizophrenias, but rather a small army of hundreds of different forms of pathogenesis and presentation." See:http://m.anp.sagepub.com/content/48/11/1067.extract

I would also note that, in my opinion, there is a need for a codified system, like the DSM, despite its inherent weaknesses. Thus, without such a publication, how would the mentally ill receive an objective diagnosis, which may then enable them to access treatment, such as medication or psychotherapy, that may help alleviate their symptoms? After all, some mental health conditions are seriously debilitating, whether their causes will eventually be deemed to be psychological or physiological.