Medicolegal and Historical Aspects

[Nemo]

Can anyone point me to a full copy of ...
The Whitechapel Murders: Their Medicolegal and Historical Aspects
By EC Spitzca : December 1888

In a previous paper Spitzca commented on the Jekyll and Hyde story with reference to real patients - one of "Gothic" contenance who was a compulsive masturbator

In regard to his JtR paper, he has some interesting comments such as that the "wild beast" resides in us all and it is not necessary to invoke the diagnosis of insanity every time it is awakened...

[How Brown]

Nemo:

Its not Spitzca, bubs..
Its Spitzka.

Here are some scans ( you probably have 'em ).
Its a shame because this article is 14 pages long.

The original is 4 pages long. I will try again to get it for you.
http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/Photo%20Thanksgiving/Forums%20March%202010/ec1.jpghttp://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/Photo%20Thanksgiving/Forums%20March%202010/ec2.jpghttp://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/Photo%20Thanksgiving/Forums%20March%202010/ec3.jpg

[SPE]

It is indeed fourteen pages long, here is the first page -

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac287/HowieNina/Easter%202011/espitzka1.jpg

[Nemo]

Thanks Howard and SPE

I'm pretty certain I haven't read it before Howard

It seems a little unusual for him to regard the Ripper as not insane in Dec 1888

[Chris G.]

Very interesting, SPE, Nemo, and Howard. Thanks for this information. Incidentally I work for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Washington, D.C., and I have gone through some of the 1888-1889 journals in the History Library here to try to see if there was any mention of the Whitechapel murders either in an article by an ob-gyn or mention of any such paper or news of the murders, but have so far come up empty handed. We do know that ob-gyn Dr. Howard Atwood Kelly commented on the murders in Medical News and as posted in another thread Dr. Lawson Tait was another who commented, formulating the theory that the culprit could have been a woman who worked in a slaughterhouse.

Chris

[Nemo]

I'd try a few later years in the library Chris if possible

Sounds like interesting work

[Chris G.]

I'd try a few later years in the library Chris if possible

Sounds like interesting work

Thanks for the tip, Nemo. I previously worked for the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore. The William H. Welch Library had old copies of the British Medical Journal and The Lancet, where the latter editorialized about the murders in the wake of Wynne Baxter's revelations about the American supposedly going around London area medical schools to obtain specimens of uteri to issue with a medical textbook, as Baxter expressed it in what in retrospect appears to have been a somewhat garbled version of the episode which he thought might have provoked a murderer to remove that organ from his victims

C