Jacob Levy

[Errata]

Hi Errata

I personally am confident he died from neurosyphilis as doctors stated at the time. All his symptoms match the symptoms. The research I did showed that the timeline for the final stage of neurosyphilis (tertiary stage) is 5 years on average.

This works exactly with Jacob's timeline starting at 1896 when he was sent to prison/asylum and his death 5 years later in 1891.

He also had the common symptoms of syphilis including the copper stained skin and uneven pupils, illusions of grandeur etc. His doctors at the asylum were also of the opinion it was syphilis and I imagine they dealt with a lot of it and recognised the signs.

Uneven pupils are a sign of uneven pressure in the brain, most common after a head injury or a stroke. Delusions of grandeur is a very common psych symptom, so that could really be anything. And I've never heard of copper stained skin in association with syphilis, and neither has google, apparently. So I don't know what that is.

I'm sure he was diagnosed with it, but the primary indicators of syphilis would be long gone by the time neurological symptoms appeared. So any degenerative neurological disorder with a psych component could have been mistaken for neurosyphilis. Or it was in fact neurosyphilis. I don't know.

[Joshua Rogan]

Probably completely unconnected, but one of the arms pulled from the Thames in the torso cases had patches of brown skin;

"The skin of the arm is adherent and white, though there are several patches of brown colour and of a hard leathery consistency, from decomposition"

[Errata]

Probably completely unconnected, but one of the arms pulled from the Thames in the torso cases had patches of brown skin;

"The skin of the arm is adherent and white, though there are several patches of brown colour and of a hard leathery consistency, from decomposition"

I'm certainly no expert in human decomposition, but isn't brown, hard, and leathery mummification? Not rot? Or I suppose cooked could do that... ugh. Either way, not what one would expect from a fresh corpse dumped into the river.

[Joshua Rogan]

Mmm, it is odd. Puts me in mind of some of the bodies found in Kingsbury Run. Police initially thought they had been treated with some sort of chemical, but if I recall correctly, eventually concluded they had simply been lying in the sun for a while. Perhaps the arm had been floating in the water with the top side exposed to the sun?
But this isn't anything to do with Levy, so I'll shut up now.

[tji]

Hi Errata

Uneven pupils are a sign of uneven pressure in the brain, most common after a head injury or a stroke. Delusions of grandeur is a very common psych symptom, so that could really be anything. And I've never heard of copper stained skin in association with syphilis, and neither has google, apparently. So I don't know what that is.

I'm sure he was diagnosed with it, but the primary indicators of syphilis would be long gone by the time neurological symptoms appeared. So any degenerative neurological disorder with a psych component could have been mistaken for neurosyphilis. Or it was in fact neurosyphilis. I don't know.

'Argyll-Robertson pupil: It is mostly caused by tertiary syphilis.'

As for the copper stained skin, i'm not sure what you're tying into google but I have just done so and got 234,000 hits. A few here -

Medical counsellings; or, The Green book: The modern treatment of ...

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7E0XAQAAMAAJ

Robert James Culverwell - 1841 - Medical
The modern treatment of syphilis, urethral affections, and all diseases of the urinary and ... ance, cease to exfoliate, and die away, leaving however a coppery stain. ... crusts, constituting a conoid tumour, and surrounded by a copper- coloured areola. ... they terminate in ulceration, which on healing leaves an indelible scar.

[PDF]OUTBREAK OF SYPHILIS r1479]
ht.ly/2WdEa
... scars, which had healed, with copper stains, and well-marked secondary-phe- ... was found to have scars of three Hunterian chancres of a copper colour, and ...

Textbook of Oral Medicine - Page 648 - Google Books Result

https://books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=818061431X

Ghom - 2005 - Mouth
Oral manifestations ' Postrhagadic scarring and syphilitic rhagades ... They appear as red or copper colored linear areas covered with a soft crust. Rhagades ... Lesion biopsy Histopathological examination of suspected lesion, stained by silver ...
Syphilis - skin, disease, secondary, affections, symptoms, growths ...
gluedideas.com/content-collection/household-physician/Syphilis_P2.html
These evidences are called the secondary symptoms of syphilis, or briefly secondaries. The first of ... The pimples by and by fade, leaving copper-coloured stains in the skin, which take some time to disappear, but leave no scar. They begin on ...
A system of practical medicine, comprised in a series of original ...

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JiADAAAAQAAJ

System - 1840
... to which usually a cicatrix succeeds, although sometimes only a livid stain or a ... by deep ulcerations, to which follows the irregular characteristic syphilitic scar. ... a copper colour ; whilst that which surrounds ecthyma is of a deep purple red.


Now i'm not saying all these match Jacob, i'm just pointing out that it is a common sign in syphilis.

Sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one. The Doctors of the time deserve credit in the fact they dealt with these people day in and day out and given that he had almost textbook case of syphilis symptoms and the Doctors of the time believe it was syphilis i'm tempted to say he suffered from syphilis/neurosyphilis.

[lilyofthevalley]

Thanks Errata and tji, for the information, it's fascinating for sure.

The Dutch census for Sarah is a dead end. The Askhanazi were hardly registered before 1800 unfortunately. I've tried some other methods but to no avail.

[Errata]

Hi Errata




'Argyll-Robertson pupil: It is mostly caused by tertiary syphilis.'

As for the copper stained skin, i'm not sure what you're tying into google but I have just done so and got 234,000 hits. A few here -

Medical counsellings; or, The Green book: The modern treatment of ...

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7E0XAQAAMAAJ

Robert James Culverwell - 1841 - Medical
The modern treatment of syphilis, urethral affections, and all diseases of the urinary and ... ance, cease to exfoliate, and die away, leaving however a coppery stain. ... crusts, constituting a conoid tumour, and surrounded by a copper- coloured areola. ... they terminate in ulceration, which on healing leaves an indelible scar.

[PDF]OUTBREAK OF SYPHILIS r1479]
ht.ly/2WdEa
... scars, which had healed, with copper stains, and well-marked secondary-phe- ... was found to have scars of three Hunterian chancres of a copper colour, and ...

Textbook of Oral Medicine - Page 648 - Google Books Result

https://books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=818061431X

Ghom - 2005 - Mouth
Oral manifestations ' Postrhagadic scarring and syphilitic rhagades ... They appear as red or copper colored linear areas covered with a soft crust. Rhagades ... Lesion biopsy Histopathological examination of suspected lesion, stained by silver ...
Syphilis - skin, disease, secondary, affections, symptoms, growths ...
gluedideas.com/content-collection/household-physician/Syphilis_P2.html
These evidences are called the secondary symptoms of syphilis, or briefly secondaries. The first of ... The pimples by and by fade, leaving copper-coloured stains in the skin, which take some time to disappear, but leave no scar. They begin on ...
A system of practical medicine, comprised in a series of original ...

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JiADAAAAQAAJ

System - 1840
... to which usually a cicatrix succeeds, although sometimes only a livid stain or a ... by deep ulcerations, to which follows the irregular characteristic syphilitic scar. ... a copper colour ; whilst that which surrounds ecthyma is of a deep purple red.


Now i'm not saying all these match Jacob, i'm just pointing out that it is a common sign in syphilis.

Sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one. The Doctors of the time deserve credit in the fact they dealt with these people day in and day out and given that he had almost textbook case of syphilis symptoms and the Doctors of the time believe it was syphilis i'm tempted to say he suffered from syphilis/neurosyphilis.

OH. I read "copper stained skin" as like Addison's disease, where people turn orange. A full body thing. Not as a color of a chancre or something. My google fu was therefor weak. I apologize.

It's off that he would have symptom of the secondary stage in the tertiary stage... and no latent stage where that usually clears? I mean I know it takes a while for evidence of the lesions to fade, but years is new to me.

And Argyll Robertson is very different from uneven pupils, so I would be curious as to which description was used. AR pupil is lack of constriction to light, and not uncommon in brain tumors as well as other structural problems, like neurosyphilis. One pupil being constricted while the other is blown wide is a different symptom, almost always pressure related, and not associated with syphilis. More so with strokes. Which can happen with neurosyph, but isn't common, and frankly usually easily spotted. Though now that I think about it some of Levy's symptoms are stroke like.

I still don't know. It still seems weird to me. Sometimes it seems like everyone in 1888 has syphilis, so I clearly can't discount it. It just seems just odd enough of a case to be something else. Of course it would be ironic if he did have syphilis, that's just not what killed him.

Which is all to say in a roundbout way that it is a bare possibility that Levy might need another motive other than this disease. Because if he was never told he had it, he didn't flip out and kill people because of it. He might have done it because he hated Fridays or whatever, but not for revenge of the clap. So to speak. But even neurosyphilis has some very physical symptoms that would make carving up a person difficult. He was clearly ill. He died of something. And whether something common or something rare, one of the things we have to decide is do we think he was healthy enough to kill. Given his rate of decline I think not. Thats just me. And I'm wrong 100 times a day. But somewhat ironically, if he died of something else other than neurosyph, it might cause a more sudden and catastrophic decline, leaving him healthier longer.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Lily



Unfortunately we haven't been able to find any reference to Sarah's maiden name or marriage to Isaac (basically anything prior to 1810 besides info on the census.

Thing is we don't know Sarah would be a Levy as she married into the Levy family, now that's not to say that she wasn't, we have seen instances of different branches of fame surname marry but it's also not that common.





Hi Abby yes Lawendes companion was Joseph Hyam Levy and newspaper sat the time commented on him being a 'reluctant witness' though we dont' really know what he's reluctant about in all honesty.
Also as much as I woudl like to say its the case, unfortunately we don't know Joseph recognised Jacob with Catherine we can only speculate he did.
Joseph and Jacob were cousins.

Hi tji
just saw this. They were cousins? is that confirmed? how did you verify?

and I ask because if its true, it would go along way IMHO, for JL's vailidity as a ripper suspect-because it would be something that ties him to the case-something that was a major issue for me in the past.

[tji]

Hi Errata

OH. I read "copper stained skin" as like Addison's disease, where people turn orange. A full body thing. Not as a color of a chancre or something. My google fu was therefor weak. I apologize.

No worries, maybe I hadn't explained it clearly.

It's off that he would have symptom of the secondary stage in the tertiary stage... and no latent stage where that usually clears? I mean I know it takes a while for evidence of the lesions to fade, but years is new to me.

I don't think he did. He had the copper stained scars but that implies the lesions/scabs had healed but the staining stayed longer. This wasn't necessarily uncommon. Some people would have it the rest of hteir lives (although it did fade)

And Argyll Robertson is very different from uneven pupils, so I would be curious as to which description was used. AR pupil is lack of constriction to light, and not uncommon in brain tumors as well as other structural problems, like neurosyphilis. One pupil being constricted while the other is blown wide is a different symptom, almost always pressure related, and not associated with syphilis. More so with strokes. Which can happen with neurosyph, but isn't common, and frankly usually easily spotted. Though now that I think about it some of Levy's symptoms are stroke like.

I still don't know. It still seems weird to me. Sometimes it seems like everyone in 1888 has syphilis, so I clearly can't discount it. It just seems just odd enough of a case to be something else. Of course it would be ironic if he did have syphilis, that's just not what killed him.

Which is all to say in a roundbout way that it is a bare possibility that Levy might need another motive other than this disease. Because if he was never told he had it, he didn't flip out and kill people because of it. He might have done it because he hated Fridays or whatever, but not for revenge of the clap. So to speak. But even neurosyphilis has some very physical symptoms that would make carving up a person difficult. He was clearly ill. He died of something. And whether something common or something rare, one of the things we have to decide is do we think he was healthy enough to kill. Given his rate of decline I think not. Thats just me. And I'm wrong 100 times a day. But somewhat ironically, if he died of something else other than neurosyph, it might cause a more sudden and catastrophic decline, leaving him healthier longer.[/QUOTE]

Not really sure what to say Errata - can I say 10% he had syphilis, no. but taken from his medical notes and his actions, then add in the opinion of the Doctors of the time i'm not really sure there is much doubt.

Just to even things out as I do feel we are normally at loggerheads, this is one thing me and my dad disagree on in all our research. Dad (Jimi) believes Jacob had syphilis AND something else that increased his symptoms/mania.

[tji]

Hi Abby

Hi tji
just saw this. They were cousins? is that confirmed? how did you verify?

and I ask because if its true, it would go along way IMHO, for JL's vailidity as a ripper suspect-because it would be something that ties him to the case-something that was a major issue for me in the past.

Yes they were definitely cousins. We found that Jacob and Joseph were first cousins.

If you take Jacob's father, Joseph Levy and Joseph Hyam Levy's father, Hyam Levy you find they are brothers, both having the same parents - Isaac and Sarah Levy.

Have you read the other thread Jacob the Ripper, it is in the General suspect thread. That has a lot of info on Jacob and his family we've done over the years, although feel free to ask anything here if you prefer.

[Errata]

Not really sure what to say Errata - can I say 10% he had syphilis, no. but taken from his medical notes and his actions, then add in the opinion of the Doctors of the time i'm not really sure there is much doubt.

Just to even things out as I do feel we are normally at loggerheads, this is one thing me and my dad disagree on in all our research. Dad (Jimi) believes Jacob had syphilis AND something else that increased his symptoms/mania.

At least it's friendly loggerheads

And there are a lot of things that can make mental illness worse, there are even things that make bacterial infections worse. It's an interesting case because to my understanding, syphilis is a lot like clockwork in its predictability of most of the progression, and Levy sort of skews off a bit.

I just find it interesting.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby

Yes they were definitely cousins. We found that Jacob and Joseph were first cousins.

If you take Jacob's father, Joseph Levy and Joseph Hyam Levy's father, Hyam Levy you find they are brothers, both having the same parents - Isaac and Sarah Levy.

Have you read the other thread Jacob the Ripper, it is in the General suspect thread. That has a lot of info on Jacob and his family we've done over the years, although feel free to ask anything here if you prefer.

Wow-Ok. well that's impressive. I thought the connection was tenous at best-but it seems you guys have nailed it down though.

so he does have something that ties him to the case-much more solid suspect IMHO now!

I will certainly check out the other thread, but if you have the time could you just give me us a quick bullet type nutshell of the main things that point to him being the ripper.

I'll start:

-His cousin was one of Lawendes companions on the night of the sighting, and if recognized may have been the reason for Levy's reluctance to talk about it.

-

[tji]

At least it's friendly loggerheads

And there are a lot of things that can make mental illness worse, there are even things that make bacterial infections worse. It's an interesting case because to my understanding, syphilis is a lot like clockwork in its predictability of most of the progression, and Levy sort of skews off a bit.

I just find it interesting.

Oops obviously that 10% should have read 100% sorry


I personally just believe that he does fit into the acceptable parameters of syphilis and especially the final '5 year stage.'

That's not to say I'm saying i'm right and you're wrong, just that my opinion is different.

[tji]

[QUOTE]

Wow-Ok. well that's impressive. I thought the connection was tenous at best-but it seems you guys have nailed it down though.

In Mark Kings dissertation he does point out the names and indicates how interesting it woudl be if they could be proved to be family but I don't believe he ever actually got that far. Luckily for us the internet now allows us a lot more access to records a lot easier and managed to find the link.

so he does have something that ties him to the case-much more solid suspect IMHO now!

I will certainly check out the other thread, but if you have the time could you just give me us a quick bullet type nutshell of the main things that point to him being the ripper.

I'll start:

-His cousin was one of Lawendes companions on the night of the sighting, and if recognized may have been the reason for Levy's reluctance to talk about it.

He was a butcher - giving him access to knives and ways to dispose of bloody garment etc and also of course anatomical knowledge (to a degree)

He lived in the area all his life and must have known all the alleyways etc.

Professor Canter stated that through Geographical profiling puts the killer in Middlesex Street the epicentre for the killings......this is where Jacob lived in 1888.

He died of syphilis.

He died in an asylum in 1891.

Jacobs mother died in May of 1888.

His brother committed suicide when Jacob was 17 by hanging himself in their bedroom. All indicators are Jacob found him there.

These are jut a few

[dantheman]

Hi All
Hi JG76
If I may.....
Of course i think Jacob is a strong suspect, the only major thing against him being no.1 is that he is not mentioned in any police report that we know of.
As myself and Tj stated-:
Jacob was the right height stated by his cousin, the witness Joseph Hyam Levy.
He wandered aimlessly at night
He had the necessary knife skills.
Jacobs death certificate stated that he died from syphillis, probably contracted from prostitutes.
he had a traumatic upbringing, probably being involved in cutting up dead animals from a young age.
Jacob discovered his elder brothers body hanging in his bedroom at the age of 19.
He was jailed in 1886, were he attempted suicide.
He lost the respect of his Jewish traders.
Looking at his medical reports it is easy to deduce that Jacob was schizophrenic.
Jacobs mother, Caroline, died inMay 1888, a common stressor.

You also mention about Jacobs children being possibly disfigured. Well within his intake file (A/H10/2/11/438) to brentwood asylum in 1886 it seems he cannot remember the name of his youngest child. Doesn't seem to be a lot of attachment there.

Keep Well
Jimi

I agree for the most part. However, Levy not being mentioned by the police should hold little weight in regards to him being a "person of interest". I mean Dennis Raider wasn't mentioned or included in any police reports until he was caught.