Food From The Gutter

[Bridewell]

If a lunatic hears voices telling him to eat only food found in the gutter, what does he do when he can't find any? Does he starve to death, or does he put food in the gutter so that he can retrieve it and escape starvation? Would such a person kill in the street and remove body parts in order to eat them? I wouldn't and I'm sure you wouldn't, but is this what such a lunatic would do?

Regards, Bridewell.

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Colin

If my dim and distant recollections of the strange people hanging around the margins of Brighton Open Market are of any relevance...you loiter around Spitalfields and eat the cabbage offcuts, sprout stalks and rotting potatoes...

But it's an interesting question I've not seen asked before!

Dave

[Bridewell]

Hi Dave,

It may not be the most rational of threads, but there was discussion elsewhere (can't remember where) about some of the victims being found in the gutter, which prompted the thought process.

Regards, Colin.

[Robert]

I cannot locate the info offhand, but I think Aaron's illness involved his not eating food given to him by someone else, rather than not eating food unless it came from the gutter. So he ate bread from the gutter simply because that was a way of eating food that hadn't been offered to him.
I don't know the reason for it - perhaps he feared his family were out to poison him.

[Trevor Marriott]

If a lunatic hears voices telling him to eat only food found in the gutter, what does he do when he can't find any? Does he starve to death, or does he put food in the gutter so that he can retrieve it and escape starvation? Would such a person kill in the street and remove body parts in order to eat them? I wouldn't and I'm sure you wouldn't, but is this what such a lunatic would do?

Regards, Bridewell.

I think you need to go back to the doctor and get your medication changed

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Trevor

In today's world, I agree, it'd be the lunatic getting the medication changed...but in 1888, with even less "care in the community" than there is now, and no medication, I don't think it's an unreasonable question....

All the best

Dave

[Beowulf]

If a lunatic hears voices telling him to eat only food found in the gutter, what does he do when he can't find any? Does he starve to death, or does he put food in the gutter so that he can retrieve it and escape starvation? Would such a person kill in the street and remove body parts in order to eat them? I wouldn't and I'm sure you wouldn't, but is this what such a lunatic would do?

Regards, Bridewell.

A schizophrenic that is paranoid is one who sometimes will not accept food to eat. They don't trust it. I know this because some of our patients at the hospital from time to time are just such people. The will not tell you this, they just won't eat, anything. They believe the food is poisoned.

Once I peaked into a room and saw my patient with an item on a chain that she wore around her neck. She was holding it over her food and making all sorts of 'signs' and passes over it before she ate it. I'm guessing she was making the food safe to eat. She was schizophrenic. She would not let anyone see this action, it was only by accident I did see it.

So if Kosminski was eating food in the gutter he likely reasoned the food was not poisoned, as no one was expected to eat it. It was garbage.

Maybe sometimes the 'voices in their heads' warn them not to eat the food, as it is poisoned.

So, going on that lovely reasoning, tonight I happened to think of this very same thing, and looked up Kosminski and saw you thought a similiar thought.

Perhaps he reasoned in his paranoid way, that the insides of women were not poisoned, because no one can reach inside and poison those parts figuring he was going to eat them. Or maybe even crazier ideas occurred to him, eg voices telling him to eat those parts and he would become granted some magical type thinking, (remember he said he knew the actions of all human beings).

[martin wilson]

From the Jewish Encyclopedia 1901

He was forbidden to partake of any food except that necessary for sustenance.
He was forbidden to bathe,cut his hair or wear footgear.

These are some of the restrictions placed on a person under the herem, a kind of rabbinical discipline.
Wasn't the only time Aaron was violent in mental hospital when he threatened an attendant with a chair after the attendant tried to feed him?

Some perhaps fringe reading on Kabbalah reveals the interesting idea that it actively encourages schizophrenia.
The 2004 murders by Phiona Davis also make interesting reading.
All the best.

[Phil H]

I suapect that in the east End there would have been no shortage of (pretty awful) food in the street - I can recall the original Covent garden Market and as was said about Brighton in an earlier post - there was always plenty of discarded vegetables around.

Phil

[martin wilson]

Jack London wrote about his guides to the East end picking up bits of orange peel and bread from the street.
The Abyss or something like that?
My interest is religious mania amongst paranoid schizophrenics but the desperate circumstances the people faced at that time must support a simpler explanation.
All the best.

[Errata]

If there was a person out there with the compulsion to only eat food out of the gutter, and there was no food in the gutter anywhere in the city, then yes. They would starve to death. Compulsions are not dependent on convenience. Compulsions kill people all the time.

Not Aaron Kosminski's problem though. He had what is called Scrupulosity. It is a religiously oriented form of OCD. And often that includes magical thinking and delusion. This doesn't mean he wasn't schizophrenic, or delusional, or had any number of other issues. But this behavior of his was caused by scrupulosity. In his case, he knew he was sick. God told him to eat no food from the hand of another, and he could be cured. It is an atonement. It is designed both to punish and cure. All things being equal, it seems likely that god told him no such thing. It is a rationalization of a lot of input and impulses. He knew he wasn't okay, he was extremely fearful for himself, and afraid of getting sicker. He was likely terrified by a series of actions an thoughts he could not control, could not stop, and could not adequately explain. His disease made him paranoid, so he couldn't trust even family. He was at least religiously educated, so he has some knowledge of the Torah, certainly had access to more knowledge.

Scrupulosity almost never affects deeply religious people. Not something nuns get. It occurs in people who were raised in the basics, and suffer some kind of trauma. Often the emergence of a mental illness. Remember mental illness to a lot of people is magic. It's like a living thing that strikes where it will, and it's not such a great leap for a person to assume they have been struck down for a reason. It sounds silly, but the closest thing to mental illness anyone has heard about, is quite frankly a curse. It really is the closest comparison. The irony is, Kosminski's OCD probably did give him some relief of his symptoms. First of all, indulging in OCD always brings a relief from emotional distress. Secondly, malnourishment and starvation shuts down the body. Anything considered non essential for survival gets cut off. Including certain neurotransmitters. So he probably was in less distress while eating food from the gutters. He likely felt more in control.

Superstitious behavior, even to the point of death is not hard to understand when you realize that severe mental illness is a game of constantly rebuilding constantly collapsing structures. Everything collapses, and it's bad. But then you start to rebuild, and you get better, and then everything collapses again. For the rest of your life. Which means that if there is a snowball's chance in hell that eating food out of a gutter means the structures actually stay up this time, you do it. The behavior is originally voluntary. As has been pointed out, not eating from another's hand is part of a cleansing ritual. Originally, I'm sure he chose the behavior on the off chance that it would work. And the act provided so much emotional relief from tension that the behavior was no longer voluntary. It was vital.

Why do I say scrupulosity instead of just some schizophrenic nonsense? Well, schizophrenic delusions are more encompassing. And he is described as becoming extremely upset when challenged on this behavior. People who believe they are acting on god's will get righteous anger when challenged. They are disapproving, and there may be some fire and brimstone speech. They may even take it personally and be very hurt. But they don't get scared. People protecting their very life get scared. People who are terrified of being deprived of the one thing they think their very survival depends on freak out. Kosminski freaked out. That's OCD. He may have had other things going on that were due to schizophrenia, but the food thing wasn't one of them.

[robhouse]

From Booth surveys of the area around Greenfield STreet:

"Absorption of district by Jews: English remain in streets & cts which are wholly English like Settle St, Myrdle St, Charlotte Court. There is a mixture of English & Jews in some streets but friction & quarrels the inevitable result. The repulsion felt of one for the other is mutual. Great mess in Jewish streets. Fishes heads, paper of all colors, bread (not a great deal of this)—orange peel in abundance. "

RH

[bolo]

Hello Martin, all,

Some perhaps fringe reading on Kabbalah reveals the interesting idea that it actively encourages schizophrenia.

I've dabbled in the Kabbalah (way before it became the next in-thing) for quite a while (as a scholar, not a practicioner) but this is news to me. Care to fill me in where you got this info from?

About the topic at hand, when I first read about Aaron's dietary preferences, the "from the gutter" line seemed like a figure of speech to me, i. e. he ate what he could find for himself and refused food given to him. Maybe I'm wrong here but I don't think that someone could survive on eating rotten vegetables or stuff like that alone so he might have picked up (stolen?) other food as well.

Regards,

Boris

[martin wilson]

Hello Bolo
I take it you mean before Madonna started red string around her wrist?
If what I wrote comes across as an assertion rather than an observation it is because it is badly written, for what it is worth the Judiciary Report has a piece on Kabbalah and the Prison Planet Forum debated it in 2008.
I'm not endorsing it, I am interested in the effect of religious mania on those who suffer from,or have a propensity to schizophrenia.
The fact that Phiona Davis was a member of the London Kabbalah Centre is to some extent irrelevant as an external cause of her actions, rather an obviously seriously ill young woman suffered from a religious mania that resulted in the death of Kieth Fernandez and Mary Skerrit.
In this case I would argue there is no special cause that differentiates the teaching of Kabbalah to any other religious study.
I see similarities in Dr Houchins medical certificate and the type of messianic delusion Phiona suffered from.
I am also curious that the only violent action carried out by Aaron was when an attendant tried to feed him, certainly it could be a poisining delusion as previously mentioned, but coupled with Dr Houchin I wonder if Aaron suffered from a religious mania.
All the Best.

[Errata]

In the 19th century certain rules applied to studying Kabbalah, rules that are in place today, at least in Judaism. The two applicable to Kosminski was that a: a person has to be judged mentally sound, and b: the student has to be older than 40. Today those rules still apply in Orthodox and Conservative Judaism. I'm not entirely sure about Reform, though I've never heard of a Reform Jew studying Kabbalah. It's not something he would have been given. It's not out of the question that he got his hands on a copy, but it frankly reads a whole lot less interesting than it actually is. Kind of like astrophysics, which can totally blow your mind, but if you read a textbook on it, it's pretty somnolent.

Remember that schizophrenia is a disease that is psychological, mental, intellectual and physical. Delusions may or may not be based on elements of the sufferer's own life, but there is no predicting it. I know a schizophrenic observant Jew who believes himself to be the incarnation of Brahma. No one knows where that came from. Evidently he read a book on Hinduism at some point, but it was never a major part of his life. On the other hand, I also know a medical student who believes that someone is targeting her for her organs. That one makes sense. There's a theory that the symptoms of Schizophrenia, ie: the delusions are compensatory for the stress and fear that goes along with it. Which would explain why so many delusions are about power. Either the gaining of it or the loss of it. People become superheroes, gods, angels, demons, presidents, kings, queens... or they lose the ability to even be safe in their own home for fear of enemies, but at least they are enemies they can identify.

But in schizophrenics, the circuitry of the brain is compromised, the neurotransmitters are way off, and the brain is physically collapsing, causing parts of the brain to touch that were not meant to touch. And we just don't know what that does. It's not an a+b=c situation. Religious mania can be caused by a number of things, including schizophrenia. But schizophrenia can also bring it to a screeching halt.

But above all consider this. If your brain suddenly betrayed you, and keeps betraying you, turning you into something and you are scared to death and no one can do a damn thing about it... you might turn to supernatural allies as a last resort. And you would certainly do any number of silly, degrading, or even dangerous things to make it stop.