Cadosch: Dismissed For Being Cautious?

[Fisherman]

I see no reason for doing that Fish. If I recall correctly Steve (Elamarna) has a medical background and he disagrees with you. And doesn’t Sam Flynn have a medical background too and I seem to recall him disagreeing with you. So why should a journalists opinion trump the opinion of those with medical backgrounds?

It should not. Generally speaking, I donīt think that the backgrounds of Steve and Gareth should trump any opinion I form myself on medical matters either. None of them are doctors or forensic specialists, and when it comes to Steve, I seem to remember that what he has done is to speak to people with medical experience, but I donīt know to what degree these people were forensic specialists.

As for Gareth, I remember him once claiming that he would NEVER accept that Phillips was right and the witnesses wrong, come hell or high water. That is of course. ot a medical assessment per se, but perhaps telling nevertheless. We are dealing with ripperology, and sometimes facts are pushed aside to allow for convictions.

Anybody can find information saying that feeling for warmth is an unreliable method. Many times it is dramatically worded, stating that it is a method that "should never be used since it is fraught with uncertainty". None of these pieces of information, though, state that a trained medico is going to be likely to mistke a cold body for a warm one, and THAT is the crux here.

As for my level of knowledge in these matters, I of course donīt base what I say on personal hunches.

[Fisherman]

Fisherman,
In answer to your post 445,I do indeed need someone to explain to me,as your replies are so lacking in explanation,but that's to be expected too.
It is Phillip's level of expertise that is in doubt,not his overall performance as a medical person,but in a situation where time of death is important.
Was he an expert in that respect? Explain.

He was a police surgeon, Harry. That means that he was the top forensic authority available in the practical field. Determining TOD was part of his work, and he would have done so innumerable times before he examined Annie Chapman.

Do you understand this, or should I try and be clearer? Iīm at your disposal.

[Trevor Marriott]

If yo

Fisherman,
In answer to your post 445,I do indeed need someone to explain to me,as your replies are so lacking in explanation,but that's to be expected too.
It is Phillip's level of expertise that is in doubt,not his overall performance as a medical person,but in a situation where time of death is important.
Was he an expert in that respect? Explain.

I would imagine that Victorian doctors had a standard accepted process used by them all to determine times of death.

In the 21st Century we now know that those methods were unsafe but when we look back to 1888 can we safely rule out the times of death estimated by the Victorian doctors based on what we know now?

If you are going to say yes then that brings into question all the estimated time of death as given by all the doctors in these murders but with some we can show that their guesses were almost spot on.

So with Philips, having regards to the unsafe witness testimony to support a later time of death we have to serioulsy ask was his estimated time of death as near to being accurate as it could have been based on his observations of the body. Having regards to what Dr Biggs stated in my earlier post #358 on the topic I am of the opinion that Dr Phillips was correct.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

. If you are going to say yes then that brings into question all the estimated time of death as given by all the doctors in these murders but with some we can show that their guesses were almost spot on.

And they had witnesses like police officer giving them helpful hints like “the body wasn’t there at....”

[caz]

Not if you are asking for cases where a doctor who found a totally cold body and mistook it for a freshly dead one. Say within the hour or so. I really donīt think so.

Hi Fishypoo,

The question concerns whether Phillips could have found a murdered and mutilated woman and been a couple of hours out in his estimated TOD because the body felt 'totally cold'.

If the coldest part of the night was just before dawn, and the summer of 1888 had been miserable, how might that have affected the body temperature of a woman who had been out all night, was poorly nourished and very ill, and had then been extensively mutilated after her throat was cut?

In another post, you claimed that Phillips would have had TOD experience from hundreds [or was it thousands?] of previous corpses, which made me smile. How many Annie Chapmans had he been called out to in the early morning hours, to estimate when death may have taken place?

How warm would this corpse have felt to the touch an hour after death, compared with three hours? I don't know. I'm not a doctor, so fortunately I don't have the relevant experience with the mutilated bodies of very sick street walkers. I don't know what all the variables would have been, and what the unknown factors could do to an original estimate. When examining the body, how much did Phillips know about the woman's movements over the previous 24 hours? Did his estimate take into account how much of that time she could have spent outdoors; or indoors, warming her bones by a roaring fire; or how many hours' sleep she might have snatched? Would none of this have made a difference?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Caz,
does your criticism of me using a quote as though it were spoke in the first person, also apply to Herlock here, or is he disagreeing with something I said, as though I were referring to something else (in other words, arguing in bad faith)?

I'm not getting involved in an issue between you and Herlock, and I meant no criticism of you personally. It was merely an observation that while the first quote came directly from the witness, the second quote was from a report paraphrasing the witness.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Anybody can find information saying that feeling for warmth is an unreliable method. Many times it is dramatically worded, stating that it is a method that "should never be used since it is fraught with uncertainty". None of these pieces of information, though, state that a trained medico is going to be likely to mistke a cold body for a warm one, and THAT is the crux here.

Don't you mean 'mistake a warm body for a cold one', Fish?

Isn't your argument that if Chapman had died after 5am, her body would still have been warm when examined by Phillips at 6.30? And that he could not have mistaken a still warm body for a stone cold one?

Would it not depend on whether Chapman had become thoroughly chilled by the time her killer struck, having spent several night-time hours outdoors, or had just emerged from her electric blanket, snuggled under her duck feather duvet for the last eight hours, with the central heating turned up high?

If the latest 'best' methods were unknown in 1888, but are still not considered wholly reliable without independent support from other sources, that should tell its own story. How is it that new methods are still being sought today, if the old ones were fine for producing a reliable minimum/maximum time since death in such a case as Chapman's? Every death is different, but this one could hardly have been more different from anything within a Victorian doctor's experience.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Wouldn’t the fact that it was a cold morning and the doctors hands might have been cold have had an effect too?

[caz]

He was a police surgeon, Harry. That means that he was the top forensic authority available in the practical field. Determining TOD was part of his work, and he would have done so innumerable times before he examined Annie Chapman.

Do you understand this, or should I try and be clearer? Iīm at your disposal.

Just a question: when did surgeons go from being sawbones to medical doctors and pathologists?

Surgeons operated on the living, so they needed different qualifications and experience to work with the dead.

Phillips didn't 'determine' TOD; he estimated it. And yet now he apparently 'determined' TOD 'innumerable' times before he was called to Chapman's body.

Did he determine TOD in 'innumerable' cases where the circumstances were in any way similar to Chapman's? Did he claim that kind of previous experience?

I would very much doubt if he had ever seen the like before.

He could still have got it right, Fish, but we'll never know, will we?

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Hi Fishypoo,

Hi Cazziepoo!

The question concerns whether Phillips could have found a murdered and mutilated woman and been a couple of hours out in his estimated TOD because the body felt 'totally cold'.

Yes, thatīs about it. "A couple of hours".

If the coldest part of the night was just before dawn, and the summer of 1888 had been miserable, how might that have affected the body temperature of a woman who had been out all night, was poorly nourished and very ill, and had then been extensively mutilated after her throat was cut?

Have a look at Eddowes, and youīll have your answer: a badly nourished and thin woman with Brights disease, who had been extensively mutilated after having had her throat cut, who had been on the streets for up against two hours and who was lying dead in colder weather, more exposed to the elements than Chapman was, who was in a backyard, up against a shielding fence. And how cold was Eddowes 40-45 minutes after she died? Lo and behold, she was "quite warm"! Who would have thought it? Eh? And there was no rigor whatsoever detectable, plus there was still fluid blood serum by her side.

It all sounds very convincing when we speak about the terribly emaciated and sickly Chapman and how she was cut open and exposed to the cold London air, but that does not matter in any significant manner after just an hour of death. If the temperature has fallen at all, it will have fallen by the fewest of degrees a that stage, and she will feel warm to the touch. It really isnīt more complicated than that.

In another post, you claimed that Phillips would have had TOD experience from hundreds [or was it thousands?] of previous corpses, which made me smile. How many Annie Chapmans had he been called out to in the early morning hours, to estimate when death may have taken place?

As I recall things, I donīt think I said that Phillips had experience of hundreds if not thousands of Annie Chapmans, though. I do know, however, of a forensic specialist here in Sweden who has had experience of people who have lain dead in very wintery conditions, and as a rule with no exceptions in his experience, they have still been warm after an hour. Of course, these dead people will not have been named Annie Chapman, but maybe - just maybe - we can take such things into account anyway? Otherwise, just keep smiling, Caz.


How warm would this corpse have felt to the touch an hour after death, compared with three hours? I don't know. I'm not a doctor, so fortunately I don't have the relevant experience with the mutilated bodies of very sick street walkers. I don't know what all the variables would have been, and what the unknown factors could do to an original estimate. When examining the body, how much did Phillips know about the woman's movements over the previous 24 hours? Did his estimate take into account how much of that time she could have spent outdoors; or indoors, warming her bones by a roaring fire; or how many hours' sleep she might have snatched? Would none of this have made a difference?

Love,

Caz
X

To be fair, I think that Phillips weighed in all the known factors, food, temperature, exposure to the elements and so on. He was aware of them, and it was his business to make as correct an assessment as possible.
However, Caz, the fact of the matter is that regardless of whether we are exposed to the elements, have eaten well, are sick and so on, the simple fact is that body temperature does not drop more than very little the first hour after death. As I have tried to get across, there is a plateau during the first 30-60 minutes after death when the body temperature does not fall at all - and even can RISE somewhat. Of course, an eskimo being killed, undressed and eviscerated in Antarctica on a particularly cold winter day, is another matter. The elements WILL play a role. But it will not play the role of taking all the warmth out of a body in one hour flat; nowhere even near it.

[Fisherman]

Wouldn’t the fact that it was a cold morning and the doctors hands might have been cold have had an effect too?

Maybe Phillips didnīt think of that?

[Fisherman]

And they had witnesses like police officer giving them helpful hints like “the body wasn’t there at....”

So you think that was what the medicos grounded their TOD:s on? They knocked on doors and asked whether the dwellers had noticed a dead body under their bedroom window at 3.10, 3.20, 3.30 ... And regardless of what they actually thought after their examinations, they changed it to fit with what the witnesses and PC:s said?

How does that tally with Phillips, stubborn old man?

Just curious here.

[Herlock Sholmes]

So you think that was what the medicos grounded their TOD:s on? They knocked on doors and asked whether the dwellers had noticed a dead body under their bedroom window at 3.10, 3.20, 3.30 ... And regardless of what they actually thought after their examinations, they changed it to fit with what the witnesses and PC:s said?

How does that tally with Phillips, stubborn old man?

Just curious here.

Trevor was talking about the other murders and TOD accuracy. So having a police man say “well the body certainly wasn’t there 30 minutes ago” would be a confirming factor.

[Herlock Sholmes]

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/ripper-discussions/witnesses/5270-meet-the-richardsons

Id never seen this before. Might be of interest to NBFN.

[Fisherman]

He could still have got it right, Fish ...

Yes, he could get it right. It is wrong to the degree that he needs to be to save the witnesses he could not have been.

... but we'll never know, will we?

Love,

Caz
X

On the contrary. We already DO know - at least I do. You may differ.