TORSOS: 1888 'An Exercise In Forensic Medicine' > Liz Jackson & Whitehall

[Archaic]

4 Torso Murders: Complete Section From 1894 'A System of Legal Medicine'

The primary source for study of the Torso Murders has always been a very well-known book titled 'A System of Legal Medicine.'
This is the book that authors writing about the Torso Murders have relied upon. It too is quite detailed, as it is derived from the original Inquest reports of Drs. Bond and Hebbert.

This book was published in 1894, 6 years after Charles Hebbert's wrote the first of his two Westminster Hospital lectures on the Torso Murders.
Dr. Hebbert is credited for assisting with much of the book's content, including the lengthy portion devoted to the Torso murders.

The basic facts and measurements presented in this book are of course the same as in Hebbert's earlier Westminster Hospital lectures, because they are the ones that he and Dr. Bond established for the 4 Inquests.
However, the book entry and the two hospital lectures are not identical, so I think it's helpful to view them in conjunction.
'A System of Legal Medicine' was published again in 1900 and the Torso material is identical in the two editions; it merely occurs on different pages.

>Please note that Debs posted a very helpful SUMMARY of the doctors' findings on the thread titled 'Autopsy Notes'.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=250

As far as I know, no one has ever posted the actual pages of 'A System of Legal Medicine' which relate to the Torso Murders in their entirety,
so I decided to go ahead and do so here so everybody can see it for themselves.

Best regards, Archaic

[Natalie Severn]

This is all really helpful Archaic ,so many many thanks.I intend to print them all out as soon as I can find time this weekend as they will be useful on so many levels,
Best
Norma

[Archaic]

Hi, Natalie.
You're very welcome; I'm glad you find them useful.

I have a few more coming and am keeping my eyes peeled for more.

Best regards, Archaic

[Natalie Severn]

I havent yet studied them,only scanned them but can see they contain the sort of detail thats going to allow comparison-both with the ripper victims and each other,
Best
N

[Debra A]

The primary source for study of the Torso Murders has always been a very well-known book titled 'A System of Legal Medicine.'
This is the book that authors writing about the Torso Murders have relied upon.

Thanks for presenting this information, I was away when you originally posted it.
I'm interested which torso authors, apart from S G Ryan, have relied upon this source, do you happen to know?

[Debra A]

Our own Debra Arif is a bit of an authority on the Torso murders

I don't claim to be a an authority on anything ,Tom. It's just that I have an interest in the torso murders in particular and have taken the time to study them in as much depth as is possible for me to do.
There is as much myth surrounding the torsos as there is the Whitechapel murders, myth that gets posted to casebook time and time again, I just wanted to get some facts out there as well...that's all.

[Debra A]

digitized source

I meant to put this in my last post. Here's a link to the digitized full text of the Westminster Hospital Reports that also includes the papers by Hebbert on the torso murders.
Plenty of other good stuff in this archive for those who didn't know about it.

http://www.archive.org/stream/westminsterhosp00unkngoog/westminsterhosp00unkngoog_djvu.txt

[Archaic]

Thanks for presenting this information, I was away when you originally posted it.
I'm interested which torso authors, apart from S G Ryan, have relied upon this source, do you happen to know?

Hi, Debs. I wish I could answer your question about the authors, but I can't.

I agree with what you said about all the myths surrounding the Torso murders.
I find these cases particularly interesting and mysterious, and the question of the motivation/psychology behind them is utterly fascinating.

I'm always on the lookout for detailed information regarding the Torso cases from reliable sources, but there seems to be very little out there; it's frustrating. That's why I wanted to share Hebbert's lectures with other Casebook members.

Frankly, Debs, you yourself have supplied a great deal of the quality content on the Torso murders. I've re-read your posts on theses cases numerous times & listened to your Rippercast multiple times, too. - Any plans for a book? If so, please sign me up for a copy.

Happy New Year to you & Maisie.

Best regards, Archaic

[The Good Michael]

I think these cases shouldn't be called Torso Murders. Maybe Limb Cannibalizers would be best.

Mike

[Debra A]

I'm interested which torso authors, apart from S G Ryan, have relied upon this source, do you happen to know?

Hi, Debs. I wish I could answer your question about the authors, but I can't.

That's a strange answer given that your original statement was;

The primary source for study of the Torso Murders has always been a very well-known book titled 'A System of Legal Medicine.'
This is the book that authors writing about the Torso Murders have relied upon.

S G Ryan was amongst the first, or maybe the first person to mention this book in relation to the torso's (and as far as I know, has not yet published his work on these murders) And as Tom mentions, R Michael Gordon is the only other author who has tackled this topic, and his sources seem to have been mainly newspapers.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Anybody else notice that there's a page missing from part one of An Exercise In Forensic Medicine posted above?

Wolf.

[Debra A]

Anybody else notice that there's a page missing from part one of An Exercise In Forensic Medicine posted above?

Wolf.

I hadn't noticed actually, Wolf, and none of the people who claimed to have read it did either

Here's the missing page 55, just for completeness of the thread. This volume and others can be viewed using the link I posted in my last post, just enter "Westminster Hospital" into the search engine and they will come up. Volume V can be viewed by following the link I provided to the text pageand then clicking on the left hand button for a PDF scanned version.

[Tom_Wescott]

I don't claim to be a an authority on anything ,Tom.

I said you're a 'bit of an authority', which means you're like an authority, only much, much, much smaller.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Archaic]

Thanks for presenting this information, I was away when you originally posted it.
I'm interested which torso authors, apart from S G Ryan, have relied upon this source, do you happen to know?

Hi Debs. Thanks for adding the page I missed; I appreciate that.

I'm not quite sure what was strange about my responding to your post above by apologizing for being unable to answer your question about
"other torso authors". That was the only honest answer I could give you, because I do not presume to have read each and every one of them.

Wolf, thanks for pointing out that I missed a page; my apologies. I don't think I had ever posted such a long article with so many pages before & I was still getting the hang of working with attachments. I'm kind of a techno-spaz anyway when it comes to computers.

Best regards, Archaic

[Natalie Severn]

Yes thanks Archaic for posting these pages-- and for the link Debs.
I noticed as well that there is only about a third of the final page [87].Would it be possible to post the rest of the page 87 from Death in its medico legal aspects?
Cheers
Norma