Author: Diana Comer
Wednesday, 04 August 1999 - 05:36 am |        |
| An abortionist wasn't necessarily a Dr. in 1888. But he or she would certainly have to be able to locate the uterus. |
Author: Sara
Monday, 09 August 1999 - 04:41 am | |
| And would your average "Jack" have known to cauterize a septic wound? - even our own crafty, elusive Jack? They were still having a difficult time convincing general practitioners to wash their hands between patients and proceedures around this time. |
Author: Jill
Monday, 09 August 1999 - 05:14 am | |
Hi Sara,
General antisceptic knowledge existed already for more than a century: rich people drank wine and the less gifted ones beer instead of water, due to its antisceptic workings. They didn't know about germs and viruses, but had some house-and-garden treatment knowledge.
I asked my dentist about crude history methods. First they let the patient drink a lot of alcohol to dose the patient and at the same time the mouth was 'cleaned'. Something like an abces was cauterized in a very crude manner. Yes, dentists were something alike butchers, more than 2 centuries back.
Cheers,
Jill |
Author: Alex Chisholm
Saturday, 14 August 1999 - 06:30 pm | |
Although not strictly relevant to the furtherance of this topic, I thought the following cautionary tale may be of interest as confirmation that even those most practiced in the use of knives can have grievous slips.
The Daily Telegraph, Saturday, October 13, 1888, reported:
"Yesterday morning the story rapidly spread in Spitalfields that a man had been found with his abdomen ripped open, and that the man was another victim of the unknown Whitechapel murderer. Upon inquiry, however, it was found that the sufferer, who was by trade a butcher, was cutting a quarter of beef into joints when his knife slipped, inflicting a very serious wound in the abdomen. He was conveyed in great pain to the London Hospital, where he died shortly afterwards."
Best Wishes
Alex |
Author: drcozart
Monday, 16 August 1999 - 09:30 am | |
| Thanks, Alex. That is exactly what got this conversation going in the first place - the possibility that Jack cut himself during an attack. |
Author: Cindy L.
Tuesday, 17 August 1999 - 09:30 pm | |
Hi All,
This is an absolutely great topic. I just finished reading all the archives, and it's great to see such thought provoking material...not the fussing and fighting that had driven me away from the boards for several months.
I have a question though that maybe one of the doctors present could answer for me. Are we sure Jack would have been dead at the time of the final murder? Couldn't someone with a relatively strong disposition or will to live have hung on long enough to commit this act? I work in a hospital setting and have seen cases of people with infection hang on for longer than two weeks, of course, they have the benefit of today's treatments with broad-spectrum antibiotics.
The violent nature of this attack shows a definte change in the murderer's behavior. Maybe he was very ill and dilerious from a high fever like the one that would have accompanied septicemia.
Thanks all, for listening or reading (whichever you prefer). |
Author: Cindy L.
Tuesday, 17 August 1999 - 09:41 pm | |
Hi Again All,
Another thought just occurred to me. Did it have to be septicemia or tetanus? What other infections could Jack have picked up? I'm thinking right now of AIDS; of course, this a modern "plague". Was there an 1880's equivolent? Maybe syphilis? And could Jack have picked that up before or during his muderous rampage? I know that the late stages of the disease can affect the brain. Could it have effected him quickly enough to be a factor here if he had picked it up during one of the early murders, and could he have picked it up from the blood of one of his victims, assuming that he had an open nick or wound? Can you pick up syphilis by contact with blood or just by the more common route I won't bother to mention because we all know?
Sorry for taking up everyone's time.
Cindy L. |
Author: Wolf
Tuesday, 17 August 1999 - 10:36 pm | |
Cindy, if Jack had contracted scepticemia after the Eddows murder he would have been dead in less than two weeks and debilitated sooner than that. Syphilis takes upwards of twenty years to affect the brain and cause dementia.
Wolf. |
Author: Cindy L
Saturday, 21 August 1999 - 05:15 pm | |
Wolf,
Thanks for the info. Guess I'm going to have to rethink this one.
Cindy |
Author: Diana Comer
Sunday, 22 August 1999 - 05:01 am | |
| Would hepatitis be a possibility? |
Author: drcozart
Friday, 27 August 1999 - 02:12 am | |
I am no Dr., but I do live in a county that just suffered a major Hepatitis outbreak and I know that the effects of it take much longer than a few weeks to grow to the stage that, if left untreated, it could eventually lead to death.
Also, just for the record, did anyone hear about the knife attack on the Amtrak train in Ohio? The man was caught with the bloody knife still in his possession and a cut which was accidentally self-inflicted during his attacks on train passengers. |
Author: Jill De Schrijver
Wednesday, 31 May 2000 - 08:02 am | |
Hello All Again,
Almost a year ago everyone's blood surged by the idea of JtR contracting blood poisoning, and maybe even a reason for the fire to cauterise a wound. It was often suggested to go look for anyone in the Hospital Records or Death Records that could have been of importance to us. The last few weeks I have been wondering if any such search has already been done? And if so, what the preliminary results are?
Greetings,
Jill |
Author: Roger O'Donnell
Thursday, 01 June 2000 - 07:42 am | |
The blood poisoning idea *could* put blotchy faced man in the frame, since scepticemia
causes that symptom. It is possible that he got it somewhere else than CE, but he could have been ill for the length of time between the Eddowes attack and Kelly, and still reasonably active, just feeling awful., and probably some organ failure getting him after the attack, although there are various ways in which BP can kill one (one can only lose so many limbs etc & surface skin before death occurs).
Blood poisoning can kill in just a few days, or can be 'how long is a piece of string' before it kills you, but a shade over a month isn't unreasonable for a fit man to have the disease, before catastrophic failure of something vital.
Otherwise, he could have contracted BP at the Kelly site, and died in, say, six week period after that. Anything longer than that and we're really looking for a needle in a haystack. So those records would need trawling in London.
Alas I'm in no position to help on this since I'm in Amsterdam, and I know you're in Belgium
Just a thought
R |
Author: David M. Radka
Thursday, 01 June 2000 - 04:48 pm | |
Roger,
Very interesting thought. I note, however, that the blotchy-faced man was red haired. Red haired people generally have very fair skin, which shows any rubifraction quite easily. Therefore if he were drunk, and he was seen carrying a quart-pail of beer, he might well have developed the blotchiness from that.
David |
Author: Roger O'Donnell
Thursday, 01 June 2000 - 06:38 pm | |
David,
Indeed, you are right,a lot of my family are red heads and look freshly brilloed after a glass or so. It was an off the cuff comment.
I think i put the idea badly however, since I wasn't trying to imply that Blotchy *was* JtR, just nodding in the direction of an existing suspect.
My personal interest is less who JtR was (probably no-one we've ever heard of), or why he did what he did (he had his reasons), but why he stopped. He pretty clearly wasn't arrested for the crimes, since the man who brought down JtR would have been made professionally, its unlikely (IMO) his family took justice into their own hands, so something intervened. BP is a good one, especially in terms of the gent's 'calling', and the apparent (implied) playing with fecal matter shewn in the CE and MK autopsies. This is notwithstanding the idea the man was put away for some other crime, and died in gaol, possibly the hulks or some similar rat-hole of the Victorian penal system. :)
Roger |
Author: David M. Radka
Thursday, 01 June 2000 - 07:41 pm | |
Roger,
Well, maybe, but how do we really know that kind of thing were true?
I believe we all already know his name, its just that we haven't yet learned how to think of him as the guilty party.
Forward!
David |
Author: Diana
Thursday, 01 June 2000 - 07:58 pm | |
| Could he have attacked some woman who somehow managed not only to fend him off, but to kill him? Then she would have fled in fright. |
Author: Roger O'Donnell
Friday, 02 June 2000 - 07:03 am | |
In direct response to the question, David, after an interval of 112 years, the loss of a lot of the primary evidence and witness testimony, we're not really sure anything is true. Any working hypothesis could be the truth. Anyone of us, at anytime could have found the reality and not recognised it. Its part of the appeal. The chance to don the deerstalker and head into the London fog, but armed with the knowledge that our century brings, the one that produced Ted Bundy, the Wests and 1001 other monsters we know. The game's afoot...
So, foward indeed.
R |
Author: Thomas Ind
Sunday, 04 June 2000 - 06:43 pm | |
The reason septicaemia kills so few people now-a-days is due to antibiotics. Yes a small cut could lead to infection and subsequently septicaemia but how many people now need antibiotics after a small cut even if contaminated with faeces. We've all had dirty wounds on playing fields and rarely require antibiotics. Our natural immunity does the job. If the septicaemia theory is to figure strongly as a cause of cessation of crimes then the probability of this occuring would have to be high and this would only be possible if we postulate a large wound like a knife wound perforating his own bowel.
If a large wound occured, then surely there would be evidence leaving the scene of the crime.
Tetanus is another matter all together. Perhaps we should look in the records for Lock Jaw. |
Author: Diana
Friday, 09 June 2000 - 08:35 am | |
| Thank you Dr. Ind. I have wondered about this because I raised two children and changed plenty of diapers. Diapers being what they are I'm sure there must have been times I pricked myself with a diaper pin at the same time that either the pin or I had some feces adhering and yet without any bad results. |
