Jacob Levy

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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]

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.

[tji]

Hi John

One problem with Levy for me is that he seems to be a suspect because he matches Kosminski well.

I woudl have to disagree John, Levy is his own suspect, there may be a few similarities but Jacob stands up to scrutiny on his own merit.

[tji]

One of the reasons I'm a fan of all the research into him even though I don't think he's the Ripper is because he's actually a pretty fascinating case from a diagnostics point of view. He was institutionalized prior to his final illness. And there was no trace of neurosyph. Occam's Razor etc. says that his mental illness prior to his final illness was related to his final illness, and therefore he did not die from Neurosyph. But he did die. Which is not at all a common feature of your average mental illness. Leaving us with three options. 1: Both of Levy's hospitalizations were a result of neurosyphilis, and he was the only person to ever have a recovery period of that disease. 2: He was mentally ill, and he had Neurosyphilis, a few years apart. Not impossible, but the timing is suspect. or 3: He was neither mentally ill nor did he have Neurosyphilis. It was some 3rd thing.

Now if 1 is true, thats amazing. If 2 is true, thats less amazing but still begs the question of motive. If 3 is true, then thats super fascinating. If he had Huntingtons, he was not the Ripper. If he had chemical poisoning, maybe he was, but with a different motive. Or not, depending on the chemical. Neurosyphilis has a known progression, so we can deduce when he started becoming so symptomatic that he could not kill. It's tight, but it's possible in his case. And thats true of other diseases or problems, but it's all different timelines. So we would have to diagnose him to rule him in or out as a suspect. Which I find interesting.

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.

[tji]

Hi Lily

Hello Tji,
Do you know Sarah's maiden name and/ or date of birth? I've looked for her in the Dutch archives, but cannot find her so far.

Just to add: I did find a Sara Levy born in 1777 in Amsterdam. She was of Portugese-Israelian background. The reason I looked into this is because there was some discussion about the way Levy looked.

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.

that's my main issue with him also. because of Anderson, and via Fido, I think has set off a 125 year witch hunt for a "crazy jew".

Plus the fact that nothing ties him to the case.

except- I believe Tracy and collegues have discovered that one of Lawendes companions might have been related to Levy, and recognized him with Eddowes-hence his reluctance to talk


Tracy
has there been any more work on this connection? How sure of we of a relation?

.

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.

[Errata]

That's a great approach Errata. Why do you feel the timing is suspect with point 2? Isn't it possible that there was a pathology that stemmed from early childhood, which could account for his murdering intentions and then get neurosyphilis on top of that?

It has to do with the disease progression of syphilis. Initial infection to neurosyphilis is typically 8-10 years. More on the 8 side. Now this is in no way an absolute, but thats the average. Which means he should have been symptomatic during his first commitment. He should already have had the lesions. That should have been in his files. But it wasn't. And they did ask, given the prevalence of Neurosyph at the time.

If he didn't have it during that first commitment, that is a very fast disease progression from infection to death. Like, super fast. Unlikely fast. So that's why the timing is a little problematic. Not impossible, but tough.

Also given the fact that his wife and children apparently never contracted a form of the disease, it does make me question if he had syphilis at all. The timing of his decline does match Huntington's to an extent. So the key to figuring that out would be to see if he had parents or children who also didn't survive past 40ish. But also his symptoms in his two hospitalizations are different. Mania for his first stay, and essentially catatonia for his last. While that could potentially be Bipolar, Bipolar doesn't kill. Mercury does. And mercury can create very different presentations in the same person. As can anything that is eating the brain. Or Schizophrenia in extremely rare cases, but that's a whole other set of behaviors that really should have been noticed.

The whole thing is mysterious and fascinating.

[Abby Normal]

One problem with Levy for me is that he seems to be a suspect because he matches Kosminski well.

that's my main issue with him also. because of Anderson, and via Fido, I think has set off a 125 year witch hunt for a "crazy jew".

Plus the fact that nothing ties him to the case.

except- I believe Tracy and collegues have discovered that one of Lawendes companions might have been related to Levy, and recognized him with Eddowes-hence his reluctance to talk.


Tracy
has there been any more work on this connection? How sure of we of a relation?

[Elamarna]

Errata,

Post 141 seems to be very well thought out .
2 looks very interesting given his history.

Steve

[lilyofthevalley]

Hello Tji,
Do you know Sarah's maiden name and/ or date of birth? I've looked for her in the Dutch archives, but cannot find her so far.

Just to add: I did find a Sara Levy born in 1777 in Amsterdam. She was of Portugese-Israelian background. The reason I looked into this is because there was some discussion about the way Levy looked.

[lilyofthevalley]

That's a great approach Errata. Why do you feel the timing is suspect with point 2? Isn't it possible that there was a pathology that stemmed from early childhood, which could account for his murdering intentions and then get neurosyphilis on top of that?

[Elamarna]

One problem with Levy for me is that he seems to be a suspect because he matches Kosminski well.

John

while that is certainly true, in some respects he is a better fit for Kosminski than Kosminski!

There is a definite trigger event.

He seems to be a better fit for Cox/Sagar and Butchers Row, where not all were butchers of course, than Kos.

steve