Can anyone place roughly when Klosowski was in Whitechapel?

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Adam,
As I pointed out in my previous post it was easy to be out by an hour or more in those days when less was understood about body temperature.The fact that the boddies were opened up meant they lost heat at different rates according to external temperature.This appears to have been understood but they didnt take the temperature by the rectum as well as the mouth which is apparently now considered essential to properly establish time of death but wasnt known to be required for such accuracy in 1888
But I have read through Dr Phillips reports and have found them very detailed,thorough and extremely knowledgeable about medical matters.The same with Dr Brown.
Also some of the leading consultants today work as consultants into their eighties so compared with some of our top consultants Dr Phillips was by no means old.
Cheers
Norma

[Adam Went]

Hey Nats,

Well the position and weather conditions in which Annie's body was subjected is little different to any of the other canonicals excluding Mary Kelly - and yet Dr. Llewellyn, Dr. Blackwell and Dr. Brown all seem to have been far more accurate than Dr. Phillips - and, coincidentally, younger than Dr. Phillips.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but I believe that the average life expectancy around a similar time to the JTR murders was 48 for men and 52 for women. So Phillips had already outlived the average expectancy - the lives and conditions of people in the Victorian era is significantly different with modern day, and can hardly be compared. Although if you did, you'd probably find that 54 year old Dr. Phillips was probably about 70 in today's language.

As I said, I don't want to make it sound like he hadn't been a good doctor, clearly he was very skilled and clever, but I just wonder if by 1888, facing the brutality of these murders, he just didn't start to lose the radar a little bit, I suppose you could say.

Anyway....bit off topic here, sorry...

Cheers,
Adam.

[Natalie Severn]

I do think you are over stating this case against Dr Phillips , Adam .Dr Llewellyn saw Mary Ann Nichols before her limbs had gone cold---so he could hardly be far out if you think about it.Ditto Dr Blackwell.He saw Liz Stride"s body before it had cooled,at 1.16 am and put her time of death between 20 mins and a half hour before---more or less the same as Dr Phillips put it who arrived nearly an hour after she had been murdered.The same with Dr Brown.Catherine Eddowes Body was still "quite warm---so he put her time of death as being a half hour before.No rocket science needed there in any single one of those cases---you or I could have got it right probably!.
Dr Phillips did suggest Annie Chapman had been dead about for two hours, yes,but her body had been exposed to the elements , both internally and externally , and that made time of death more difficult to establish.Same with Mary Kelly whose body, internal and external ,had been opened up and part skinned.
Dr Llewellyn made a few big mistakes actually, which I do not think happened with Dr Phillips.
You make a statement about average life expectancy----yes for the poor, the dreadful rate of infant mortality also brought the average life expectancy down considerably for those living in poverty but a well fed middle class doctor? No.He would probably have been healthier than today"s stress ridden 54 year old doctors!

Norma
Anyway---lets leave it Adam since we clearly disagree.[sorry must dash-cooking dinner!]

[Adam Went]

Hey Nats,

Largely, I do agree with you, and I might be being a little harsh on Dr. Phillips, but no matter what the temperature of the body was, it's inexcusable IMO for a doctor of Phillips' age and experience to be so far out with his estimation of Annie Chapman's time of death - half an hour, maybe - but more than an hour? There's got to be something going on there. If you can't judge by body warmth, there are other means, such as how loose the limbs are (i.e. the onset of rigor mortis.) Plus his comments about Kate Eddowes when the general concensus of everyone else involved, then and now, was that she was a Ripper victim....you know, just looking at it like that, there has to be some question marks over his statements.

As a point of interest on the question of age.....Phillips himself had died within 10 years of the Ripper case (1897 aged 63, IIRC). Another who didn't live to a particularly old age, even for a "well fed middle class doctor".

Anyway yes, we are somewhat off topic here....and I don't want to make you burn your dinner over it!

Cheers,
Adam.

[Natalie Severn]

Ok Adam,
I accept that 63 was early, even in the 1890"s for a doctor to have died.I would like to know what he died of though---for example cholera epidemics carried people off in droves at that time.
But I disagree about Annie Chapman , for the reasons I gave.Also Dr Phillips had seen several other victims allegedly of the Ripper, so maybe the death of Kate Eddowes too appeared to be much rougher work to him than had been the case with Annie Chapman.
Lets leave it though.I will get back to you on Klosowski!
Cheers
Norma

[Adam Went]

Nats:

Just on one point, IIRC, Dr. Phillips died from apoplexy (internal bleeding). Which could have meant a stroke. Either way, it was sudden. 63 isn't young, but it isn't old either really. It would be interesting in regards to his findings in the JTR case if it was found that he suffered from alzheimers/dementia later in his life, eh?

Anyway, yes, back to Klosowski....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Natalie Severn]

Adam,
I have to tell you that if we are going to enter into some kind of absurd discussion here about Dr Phillips ,then quite frankly I dont want any part of it.
Can I draw your attention to The Times Inquest report,Friday 14th September in particular. though there is more to be found elsewhere,in fact in the JtR Ultimate Source Book by Stewart Evans and Keith Skinner The Times"s report of the Inquest has been written out in full.
This,if you read it seriously and without prejudice, will give you an illustration of Dr Phillips keen understanding of his work, his attention to detail, his ability to draw his observations together into a coherent and clear report, using appropriate medical terminology and betraying not the slightest hint of any mental confusion.
His reasoning behind his decision to give the time of death is given and I for one, understand his conclusion as acceptable .
How do we know for certain that Cadosch had it right? He was in and out twice to the privy before 5.15 ?He did not see Mrs Long when he left his house at the time she said she saw the couple chatting ie 5.30.A lot of confusion about timing there----maybe Mr Cadosch had incipient dementia too brought on by the anaesthetic used for the recent operation he had had ? Mrs Long may have been simply an attention seeker who never saw anyone near the shutters of no 29 at all.
But at least most of Dr Phillips sterling report on Annie Chapman can still be read in The Times Report on the Inquest-----its on Casebook too---or some of it is I believe. Try reading it without prejudice Adam.
Best
Norma

[Adam Went]

Hey Nats,

As I've stated numerous times before on this topic and others, I've got no doubt that Dr. Phillips was a fantastic doctor, especially given the lack of technology and medical treatments available to doctors in the Victorian era. However, that is Phillips in general throughout his career, and most of all prior to the JTR case, and all we are, or should be interested in here are his findings and conduct during the JTR case, and that is the part that, IMO, needs to be scrutinised somewhat closer, particularly given the findings of other doctors which tend to contradict his.

There can be no denying that in some cases, his opinions clash directly with those of other doctors and the police. There has to be a reason for this, and somebody has to be wrong. The comment about Phillips and alzheimers was somewhat tongue in cheek, and there's nothing to back anything of the sort up, I was just mentioning that it would be interesting if something like that should be found out about him.

As for Annie Chapman....you missed John Richardson. He was quite sure that there had been no person, alive or dead, in the yard when he stood on the steps at 4.45 AM - according to Phillips, Annie should have already been dead in the yard by this time. Perhaps I'm being too picky on Dr. Phillips - and I am by no means a doctor - but for somebody of his experience and expertise, he did have some strange findings.

And we're still off topic! Haha.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Natalie Severn]

Hey Adam,
Dr Phillips words were that he thought the "deceased had been dead at least two hours, probably more, when he first saw her, but that it was right to mention that it was a fairly cool morning and that the body would be more apt to cool rapidly from its having lost a great quantity of blood."
Dr Bond believed " in the cases of Nichols ,Chapman and Eddowes ,three or four hours only could have elapsed" .
Nobody "contradicted" Dr Phillips over the time of death of Annie Chapman.
Adam, have you actually re-read Dr Phillips"s Inquest report ? -because its from the contents of that that should form the basis of whether he was suffering from your idea of any age related "confusion" or dementia or not.My contention is that there is no evidence in it whatsoever for either suggestion.

[Adam Went]

Hey Nats,

But my point is that none of that is any different to any of the other canonical victims (perhaps excluding Liz Stride, since her abdomen wasn't mutilated and therefore her insides weren't exposed to the cold), they were all killed on cold, wet nights - Annie Chapman is no different. If anything, it should have been easier to judge her time of death, given that she was killed at about the same time as daylight was beginning.

Yes, I have re-read Phillips inquest statement, and I can only re-affirm that my comments were intended as tongue in cheek. Also, by that time, the victim had been examined inside the mortuary, where conditions were obviously far better to make judgements than outdoors in the dark.

Dr. Phillips could be forgiven for being slightly out with his times. However, given that the other doctors more or less nailed the time of death well, and since it seems some would like to believe that Dr. Phillips was so fantastic and brilliant, on the strength of that alone, some serious questions need to be asked of him. And it's not just about Annie Chapman, it's about Kate Eddowes as well. For a doctor of his experience and expertise, you just can't be making judgements that are so far off the mark.

Cheers,
Adam.

[The Snapper]

I think I'm with Adam West and for that matter Sugden on the matter of the timing of Klosowski's arrival in London if only because of the crowded timeline issue. Assuming that his posing as a yiddish speaking Polish jew was to ingratiate himself with the Radin's my question would be when and where did he get this knowledge ? Diligent research on his part might partly answer that but to speak yiddish could hardly have been gleaned from a book. There's also the question of circumcision. I'm assuming ( I know,that word again) his wife would have noticed. Which means she would have been party to at least some of his lies. I'm aware that all this raises further questions but the more I look at Chapman the more I wonder.

[The Snapper]

Further research has answered my yiddish question I think his fellow students in Poland could be one solution. Look before you leap then ....

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Snapper,
Yes,a large percentage of the small population of his village were Jewish,so he would have grown up among Yiddish speakers as well as Polish speakers.
His last payment in Warsaw to the University Medical School was made at the end of February 1887.This is the last dated document found among his papers during his arrest and the search of his room in Southwark in 1902.We know from the Post Office address records that the Radins were living at 70 West India Dock Road in 1888, that Severin Klosowski stayed with them there for about five months and that by the start of December of 1888 at latest he was registering himself at 126 Cable Street-thereby making it likely that he was living in Cable Street towards the end of 1888.He was definitely living in Cable street in 1889 because his wife joined him there when they married in October 1889.
So the time old assumption that he arrived here some time between early Summer 1887 and the end of that year is probably as near as we will get,
Best,
Norma

[c.d.]

[QUOTE=Wolf Vanderlinden;128717]The best that the Solicitor General, Sir Edward Carson, could do to pin down the date of Klosowski’s entry into Britain was to state, during his opening remarks at Klosowski’s trial, that he had arrived in London “about 1888.” Sir Edward was armed with all the information obtained by Scotland Yard from their thorough investigation into Klosowski’s activities, information which we don’t have today, yet could not be more precise than this as to the actual date. “About 1888,” therefore, is the best we can do given the information we now have.

That is an interesting statement. I would have to assume that Scotland Yard's investigation would have included a direct question to Klosowski himself as to when he first arrived in London. I would think that that would be a question that he could answer fairly easily (if he wanted to) as it would appear to be a significant event in his life. Could he have been deliberately vague in his response? I have always wondered how hard they pressed him on the Ripper murders (if at all). Could he have been simply trying to give himself an alibi for the Ripper murders?

c.d.

[HelenaWojtczak]

What's that third name in the 1891 census, looks like STOCKTINE or something?