Is it possible the Ripper's victim's "killed" him?

[caz]

This is a fantastic example - going back to the writing on the wall - of an otherwise correctly spelt post with a single (extraordinary) spelling mistake.

It does happen though - even to those of us with English as our first language.

The other day I was mortified to see I had put:

"Glad to here it" in a post and it was too late to edit. I thought I must be losing my marbles. I still might be.

Love,

Caz
X

[MysterySinger]

Henry Maxwell died not long after the Kelly murder (Caroline's man). But there again so must a large number of others.

[wigngown]

Caz,
I'm still looking for the mistake you made ��
Best regards

[Errata]

Hi All

Major Illness that could have been caught, but not only ones:

1.Septicaemia leading to Sepsis.
2. Hepatitis C

Others have pointed out, without personal protective equipment, when carrying out mutilations, any cuts on killer could become infected, either directly from blood or bacteria from intestines.

Risk of death extremely high, no antibiotics to use against bacterial infections and no steroids or other medications which would counter effects of Hep C.

Please note I am not saying any such illness was caught, the questions asked were:

If it was possible?
What risk was there?
What risk of death?

hope this info helps with those answers


Steve

It's actually stacking probabilities. So You have the probability that the victim had some transmissible disease. Then you stack on that the probabilities of the various diseases that could be contracted, stack on top of that the transmission rates of those diseases, stack on that the probability that the killer did not seek medical assistance, did not seek it in time, or had contracted an incurable disease. Which makes it sound like the answer is that there is no way he got sick from this, but in actuality I ran it once and came up with 30%. So It's a legitimate threat, but calculating the odds is complicated.

[Elamarna]

It's actually stacking probabilities. So You have the probability that the victim had some transmissible disease. Then you stack on that the probabilities of the various diseases that could be contracted, stack on top of that the transmission rates of those diseases, stack on that the probability that the killer did not seek medical assistance, did not seek it in time, or had contracted an incurable disease. Which makes it sound like the answer is that there is no way he got sick from this, but in actuality I ran it once and came up with 30%. So It's a legitimate threat, but calculating the odds is complicated.

Hi Errata

yes, exactly as you say.


I only considered diseases that the killer may have exposed himself to while performing the mutilation, rather than any disease he may have contracted just by being in close proximity to the victims, such as TB, Flu, etc. Of course this should also be looked at.

Both Diseases listed were extremely hard to treat successfully in 1888, even with medically attention.


Basically all that can be said is:

1. Could the killer have contracted an illness? Answer must be yes he could.
2. Did he? Answer must be unknown.

Steve

[Barnaby]

It's actually stacking probabilities. So You have the probability that the victim had some transmissible disease. Then you stack on that the probabilities of the various diseases that could be contracted, stack on top of that the transmission rates of those diseases, stack on that the probability that the killer did not seek medical assistance, did not seek it in time, or had contracted an incurable disease. Which makes it sound like the answer is that there is no way he got sick from this, but in actuality I ran it once and came up with 30%. So It's a legitimate threat, but calculating the odds is complicated.

I would venture to say it has to be lower than 30%, but that's not an unreasonable upper estimate. When dealing with these probability calculations you have to multiply them. Let's make it easy and assume the victim has an STD (p = 1). Suppose the probability of it being contracted is .8. Suppose that the probability that it is debilitating/fatal if untreated is .5. Suppose that the probability that he would seek medical assistance is also .5. Just based on these numbers, the probability that he got an STD AND that it was debilitating AND did not seek treatment = .8 *.5 * .5 = .20 or 20%. Obviously the more variables you throw into the mix and/or the lower the individual probabilities are, the lower the combined probability will be. Of course I just made up all the numbers to illustrate the calculations. Don't hold me to them.

[Pierre]

I would define an event being possible as one in which there is a nonzero chance of occurence. But I concede that this isn't very useful and a historical conceptualization may be better.

Thank you, Barnaby. I agree with you.

Regards, Pierre

[Pierre]

Hi Errata

yes, exactly as you say.


I only considered diseases that the killer may have exposed himself to while performing the mutilation, rather than any disease he may have contracted just by being in close proximity to the victims, such as TB, Flu, etc. Of course this should also be looked at.

Both Diseases listed were extremely hard to treat successfully in 1888, even with medically attention.

Basically all that can be said is:

1. Could the killer have contracted an illness? Answer must be yes he could.
2. Did he? Answer must be unknown.

Steve

Very good, Steve. So medically it was possible at that time. But it is unknown. So for an historical possibility, we need sources. I suggest people with the hypothesis that Jack the Ripper contracted an illness search for sources with data for the relevant illnesses then.

Regards, Pierre

[Errata]

Very good, Steve. So medically it was possible at that time. But it is unknown. So for an historical possibility, we need sources. I suggest people with the hypothesis that Jack the Ripper contracted an illness search for sources with data for the relevant illnesses then.

Regards, Pierre

No, for a historical possibility we simply need conjecture. For certainty we need sources.

And in this particular case, since we are not looking at chemical or biological structures of diseases, Wikipedia should suffice.

There is no way, none at all, to structure this question so that the answer comes back that Jack unequivocally died of a disease he caught from a victim. Not without knowing the killer. But it's not an outrageous supposition. Just like most on this board, unprovable.

[DJA]

TB, Flu, etc.

The Whitechapel TB rate at the time was ~ 25%.
(Chapman and Stride's ex husband).

The 1889 Flu Pandemic was a year away.

Hep C possibly had not evolved at that time.

Pneumonia was a problem.

[Columbo]

A better question might be "what disease could he have caught that would've killed him soon enough to stop killing". If we follow his timeline, wouldn't he have to die within a month after MJK?

[Rosella]

Yes, Prince Albert Victor died from pneumonia in the early 1890's so it was no respecter of persons. As DJA has stated tuberculosis was a killer all over the western world at that particular time. The air in London was filled with particles of different substances, there were regular pea-souper fogs, especially in the autumn. All this caused respiratory problems of one sort or another. Bronchitis was common. When you add malnutrition in poor families plus the average life expectancy in the 1880's, it becomes more of a possibility that friend Jack did either die quite early by our standards or contracted an illness (in 1889) from which he didn't recover.

[Shaggyrand]

Hep C possibly had not evolved at that time.

Hep B and Hep D were both around. The rampant alcoholism would even hidden the damage done by Hep D. I took a quick look for an estimated infection rate of Hep B at the time but came up empty. Does anyone have any information on that?

[DJA]

A better question might be "what disease could he have caught that would've killed him soon enough to stop killing". If we follow his timeline, wouldn't he have to die within a month after MJK?

Nope.

Still alive well into 1891.

Mary Kelly was the last,well actually the prime blackmailer.

[DJA]

Hep B and Hep D were both around. The rampant alcoholism would even hidden the damage done by Hep D. I took a quick look for an estimated infection rate of Hep B at the time but came up empty. Does anyone have any information on that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis_B#History

Probably be surprised as to where alcohol is listed in liver diseases.

Edit. http://www.cevhap.org/index.php/en/a...y-of-hepatitis