Why Mutilate The Nose Specifically?

[Errata]

There's your reason. Thank you Don Rumbelow.

Because Bridewell is not asking every last thing about syphilis etc, he's asking why mutilate the nose. What impulse the killer acted on.

Roy

It only serves to brand her as a prostitute if it was known problem that syphilis ate noses, which it was not. Now, I could have simply typed "No you're wrong." which in fact would have been MUCH more concise. But in order to defend that statement I have to expound on the nature of syphilis. And if I'm going to do that, I might as well explain how I know what I know, and why there seems to be this persistent myth. And if I'm going to say all of that, I might as well put it out there that in matters medical, maybe ask a doctor and not a ripperologist.

Mutilating the nose to mark her as a prostitute makes as much sense as cutting off the first digits of her fingers to mark her as a prostitute. Which may work in the killers mind for some reason, but isn't going to make sense to anyone else.

Why mutilate the nose is actually incredibly simple. I've said it before. Because it sticks out. If you run a blade across the planes of the face, it hangs up on the nose. Removing the nose provides a flat canvas. It also generates a ton of blood and is the single most disfiguring cut that can be made on a human. Cut out any other facial feature and an identification can still be easily made. Humans have a habit of hammering down what sticks up. Or cutting it down.

[GregBaron]

Cutting off your nose to spite your face...

Hi Caz,

That reminds me of when I asked a vet why dogs eat grass. He said, "Because they like it."

Isn't this the same reason a dog licks something else?

Also related to the above. In a rare moment of candor, Bundy declared the following when asked by a policeman, "why Ted why?".

Answer: "Because I liked it". Perhaps Jack had the same motivation?

"Her nose annoyed me so I cut it off..."

Yeah, I think the killer may have simply wished to further humiliate and degrade the victim. Attaching a symbolic significance to the facial cuts may be a bit of a reach...Who knows, maybe he would have cut up the faces of Nichols and Chapman if time permitted? Maybe Cross and Cadosch interrupted as did Dimshits......


Greg

[Errata]

Sooo, you're saying Donald Rumbelow did not do his homework. Does this mean the famous 'no-nose clubs' in the 18th century and the silver prosthetic noses in the 19th century were rare?

I hope to god this is a joke, but in case it's not...

The No-Nose Clubs did not contain people who actually had no nose. Much like the Hellfire Club contained no actual Hellfire.

And the only person I have ever found mention of who had a metal prosthetic nose was Tycho Brahe, who lost his in a duel. Which isn't surprising because Brahe's injury compromised bone. Syphilis doesn't eat bone. And the Indians had rhinoplasty before the English had Normans, so it was not a completely unknown fix for tissue damage.

I am not casting aspersions on the Revered Rumbelow, nor am I presuming to say that he did or did not do his homework. Merely that the statement that syphilis targets the nose is false.

[mklhawley]

Hi Caz,

That reminds me of when I asked a vet why dogs eat grass. He said, "Because they like it."

Simple and to the point.

Mike

[caz]

Hi All,

I doubt that Eddowes's nose was targeted because her face - specifically - reminded her killer of someone close to him. That would be some coincidence if he had just come from Berner Street and Eddowes was the first woman he encountered who was willing to go off with him. Besides, if he went on to mutilate MJK's facial features a few weeks later and a few streets away, how likely is it that her face would have reminded him of the same person?

Having said that, I do see the possibility of this type of killer projecting personal issues he had with one particular female onto any prospective victim, if only to justify his behaviour to himself. I think he was an opportunistic killer, selecting his victims at random for their availability and willingness to co-operate more than anything else. I don't believe he could have gone round searching out women of a certain physical appearance or hair colour or style, which was a luxury Bundy evidently had.

While he may have planned to a certain extent in between attacks, and fantasised about what he would like to do to his next victim, in reality he had to think on his feet, especially if the women had a say in the locations, and he knew time would be limited. He appears to have wanted to up his game and try new tricks as soon as the conditions allowed, because there in Mitre Square, despite the obvious dangers lurking round every corner, he took his chances and truly went to town, not content with mere ripping and organ removal this time, but extending his repertoire to include above the neck mutilations. It is my firm belief that only a man who had recently got away with murder in similarly risky circumstances (I'm thinking Hanbury Street particularly), and was beginning to feel that nobody was a match for him, would even have attempted as much.

For me, the simplest and most plausible explanation for the 'nose job' on Eddowes was given by the author of the Maybrick Diary, even if everything else was rubbish:

"Her nose annoyed me so I cut it off..."

Economical and to the point, and the kind of deranged logic the author evidently thought such a killer would employ and find perfectly reasonable. These women were put on the killer's planet just to cause him grief. In his own tiny mind he was only doing what any other man would have done, if they were not so afraid of the consequences.

Love,

Caz
X

[Wickerman]

Hi Lynn.
What would I know, I'm what you might call a non-subscriber

Regards..

[lynn cates]

Kate, an idolater?

Hello Jon. I believe that this reference is to "spiritual prostitution"--ie, defection.

Cheers.
LC

[Wickerman]

".. They will cut off your noses and your ears, and those of you who are left will fall by the sword... They will also strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry. So I will put a stop to the lewdness and prostitution you began in Egypt.."

So sayeth the lord!

[Roy Corduroy]

Narrator: ...another horrific murder was committed, Catherine Eddowes. Gruesomely, her nose was severed.

Donald: A lot of women had syphilis and the tip of the nose rotted, and so what you can actually buy was a false nose to conceal the despicament. What (the Ripper) was doing was branding her as a prostitute.

What (the Ripper) was doing was branding her as a prostitute

There's your reason. Thank you Don Rumbelow.

Because Bridewell is not asking every last thing about syphilis etc, he's asking why mutilate the nose. What impulse the killer acted on.

Roy

[mklhawley]

All due respect to Donald Rumbelow, but that isn't even a little true. Certainly gummas could form on the nose, and did but it was just as likely to blow a hole in the side of the nose as to remove the tip. Assuming the gummas formed on the nose at all. Congenital syphillis has a distinctive saddle nose deformity, but that neither looks like the nose was missing, and would have been apparent since birth. Nothing in syphilis looks like, or leads to a missing nose. Now without a spectacular cavalcade of circumstances. Certainly tip of the nose prosthetics were not a thing. Theres no reason to make them. It was surgically correctable. But if people really want a link between syphilis the nose and Jack the Ripper, the way you surgically corrected an amputation of the end of the nose is to transplant part of the earlobe.

Sooo, you're saying Donald Rumbelow did not do his homework. Does this mean the famous 'no-nose clubs' in the 18th century and the silver prosthetic noses in the 19th century were rare?

[Nemo]

I see

Thanks very much for that extensive explanation Errata, very interesting

I must be referring to mis-labelled photos as you suggest

Regards

Nemo

[Errata]

Hi Errata

I don't agree with Don in this case, but I do know that syphillis does indeed eat away at the nose to leave a skull like hole / missing nose

I could post pics but they are a bit gruesome

But it doesn't. Yes a few people have had massive non recoverable gummas on the nose. It is not even a little common. Nor are gummas any more likely to appear on the nose than the lips, the cheeks, the neck, anywhere else. What most people think of as far as nose deformities is the saddle nose deformities of congenital syphilis. Which are often mislabeled as tertiary syphilis, I guess because it looks worse than actual tertiary syphilis. Gummas are not pretty. But they aren't rotting holes in the face. They are bulbous inflammation that is disfiguring and leaves scars. Diseases that target noses target all fleshy areas. Like frostbite. Tips of the nose, ears , fingers, toes, etc. There is no special tip of the nose flesh eating disease.

If you search for picture of tertiary syphilis, you get a lot of gruesome images. Some of which look like a person is rotting to death. That isn't syphilis. Just scrolling through some of these, a couple are congenital syphilis, a few are burns, one is absolutely leprosy because it's the same picture in my Bacteriology book, some came straight out of the Mutter museum, and none are syphilitic.... Not to mention if you ask any doctor familiar with the disease, such as an Ob/Gyn like my dad, he will tell you what syphilis actually looks like. (not the most comfortable conversation ever, FYI)

So here's the deal. If it's a picture of a white person post 1950, it's pretty much not tertiary syphilis. The only place that routinely produces tertiary Syphilis since WWII is Africa, and not Capetown. If it is blackening, or has black edges, not syphilis. If it's surrounded by shiny scarring, thats infected burns. If it is on a head in a jar, it might actually be tertiary syphilis that someone preserved for novelty. If it comes with a host of other severe defects in the jaw, the brow, the eyes, that's congenital syphilis.

The chancres that go along with syphilis are gone by tertiary syphilis. They can be big and look exactly like cold sores on a grander scale, but that's all they are. Chancre sores. By the time secondary syphilis kicks in, those are gone. And remember that these lesions or sores occur at the point of contact. So on the genitals primarily, occasionally on the hands and mouth. The nose is a bit odd, because the spread of lesions has to do with point of contact. Primary point of contact genitals, secondary hands, tertiary point of contact mouth or sometimes really unfortunately, eyes. Not that people don't touch their noses, but generally wiping it with your sleeve or the back of the hand, which doesn't spread the lesions. Syphilis actually doesn't survive too terribly long outside the body.

The truth is, there aren't a whole lot of pictures of tertiary syphilis out there. It's why most medical textbooks have pictures of prisoners from the 20s or 30s. There are Victorian photographs out there that I know are of tertiary syphilis, but I've never seen them on the web. Basically, if you have a picture you think is tertiary syphilis, ask a gyn or epidemiologist. Because it's been mostly eradicated in the world for a long time, and most doctors have never seen tertiary syphilis if it isn't somehow their specialty.

All of this to say that it isn't that you don't have some really uncomfortable pictures of tertiary syphilis, just that most of the pictures labeled tertiary syphilis on the web are not in fact tertiary syphilis. For reasons completely unknown to me, unless it's how sex educators are convincing their kids to wear condoms, in which case, good work.

[Nemo]

Hi Errata

I don't agree with Don in this case, but I do know that syphillis does indeed eat away at the nose to leave a skull like hole / missing nose

I could post pics but they are a bit gruesome

[Observer]

bserver: I agree with you except on one major point. Sutcliffe was a disorganized killer. But I don't think Jack the Ripper was. Sutcliffe favored no weapon, no area of the body, no overarching theme. He tended to favor prostitutes, but did not confine himself to them. Essentially he was just lashing out violently whenever the mood struck him. Classic disorganized killer. Jack the Ripper cut throats. He posed bodies. He fetishized mutilation. The bodies don't all look alike, but they all are a play on a similar theme. Sutcliffe is however exactly what I think Jack would have looked like if he devolved. Peter Sutcliffe wasn't caught sooner because of a lot of errors and some sheer dumb luck. The Ripper wasn't caught because as best we can tell, he left no witnesses. Sutcliffe was not careful. Jack was. They have a lot of similarities as best I can tell, but not the most important part, which was self control.

Hi Erratta

Sutcliffe's signature was as Wickerman points out his hammer. True he used other weapons, but his victims came to be recognised by the police due to the hammer blows to the head he inflicted upon his victims.

He was very inventive in the way he manouvered his victims into a position in which he could strike the killer blow.

" It was my intention to get her into my car with the minimum of fuss. I knew she had refused to get in one car so I got out of my car and walked to the corner. She was only a few yards away walking towards where I was stood. I walked back to my car and as she came into view I shouted "BYE NOW SEE YOU LATER" and "TAKE CARE" and I waived towards the houses on my left. I did this to give her reassurance that I was alright"

And again

I wantedto do what I'd got in mind as soon as possible. I
remember turning on the ignition again so that the red warning
llight came on and pretended that the car would not start I said
I would have to lift up the bonnet to sort it out. I asked her
if she would give me a hand. We both got out of the car I lifted
up the bonnet of the car. I had picked up a hammer which I had
put near my seat for that purpose. I told her I could not see
properly without a torch. She offered to use her cigarette
lighter to shine under the bonnet.
She was holding her lighter like this I took a couple of steps
back and I hit her over the head with the hammer I think I hit
her twice she fell down onto the road.

So you see very much in control prior to the murder. Of course once his victims were prone thats when the blood lust took over.

Nemo commented that he didnt think the perpetrator of the Whitechapel murders was possesed of a blood lust. And, to be fair, the term does conjure up an image of a wild eyed maniac easily picked out from the normal man on the street, a man it is wise to stay clear of.

Sutcliffe, JTR, and others of their ilk are possesive of a blood lust. However, as can be seen from the examples above, they are very much in control prior to the murder. The frenzy begins, the lust to kill and mutilate, commences only when they have their victims subjued.

Regards

Observer

[Errata]

Greetings all,

Another Ripperologist talked to me about this thread, and this is what he had to say:

BBC America recently broadcasted a show on Frederick Deeming. Donald Rumbelow was on it. Here is part of the show's dialogue.

Narrator: ...another horrific murder was committed, Catherine Eddowes. Gruesomely, her nose was severed.

Donald: A lot of women had syphilis and the tip of the nose rotted, and so what you can actually buy was a false nose to conceal the despicament. What (the Ripper) was doing was branding her as a prostitute.


Sincerely,

Mike

All due respect to Donald Rumbelow, but that isn't even a little true. Certainly gummas could form on the nose, and did but it was just as likely to blow a hole in the side of the nose as to remove the tip. Assuming the gummas formed on the nose at all. Congenital syphillis has a distinctive saddle nose deformity, but that neither looks like the nose was missing, and would have been apparent since birth. Nothing in syphilis looks like, or leads to a missing nose. Now without a spectacular cavalcade of circumstances. Certainly tip of the nose prosthetics were not a thing. Theres no reason to make them. It was surgically correctable. But if people really want a link between syphilis the nose and Jack the Ripper, the way you surgically corrected an amputation of the end of the nose is to transplant part of the earlobe.