Dr Hebbert saw 6 victims?

[Robert Linford]

Debs, what do you make of Jeff's point about the eyesight? Would a man with pince-nez be OK acting as a surgeon? Or was he a ship's surgeon some years before the photo was taken?

[Debra Arif]

Debs, what do you make of Jeff's point about the eyesight? Would a man with pince-nez be OK acting as a surgeon? Or was he a ship's surgeon some years before the photo was taken?

The photo was from his merchant seaman card and dated 1918, Robert. He's listed as a surgeon so presumably it was taken in 1918 and he was a surgeon on ship as eluded to in that newspaper article you sent me about his death? Wouldn't the glasses have corrected any eyesight problems? Surgeons do wear glasses nowadays, do they?
Maybe he was short-sighted and need glasses for looking out to sea.
Maybe that thing around his neck is something else?

[Debra Arif]

[Robert Linford]

Hi Debs

I suppose surgeons wear glasses. The only times I've been under, I couldn't really see.

Well, we have no reports of someone having pince-nez left in their stomachs, anyway.

Thanks Debs.

[Lynn Cates]

thanks

Hello Debs. Thanks.

Cheers.
LC

[Debra Arif]

Hi Debs

I suppose surgeons wear glasses. The only times I've been under, I couldn't really see.

Well, we have no reports of someone having pince-nez left in their stomachs, anyway.

Thanks Debs.

I guess out at sea it was either Mr Magoo to operate...or death.

[Robert Linford]

Well if Kenneth Connor could do it in "Carry On Cruising" then I guess Hebbert was OK.

[Debra Arif]

I saw this in a catalogue index of papers written and published on various subjects, from the Surgeon General's Office Library in the US.
Hebbert's 1889 ' An Exercise in Forensic Medicine II' is listed under the heading of papers dealing with Mutilation and described as concerning instances of mutilation. We know this paper deals with the observations on the remains of Elizabeth Jackson and the Pinchin Street Case. Paper I with the same title dealt with the Rainham and Whitehall cases.



I think that Hebbert would have probably included these murders in his tally of 6 mutilation murders he'd viewed in that case. As one occurred in Whitechapel (Pinchin St) and Hebbert thought all the torso victims were dismembered by the same person, I think he'd class them all in terms of being 'Whitechapel murders'- They were similarly described in the 1894 A System of Legal Medicine in the acknowledgment to Mr Bond and Dr Hebbert and announcement that the details of the Whitechapel murders were being published in full for the first time in a medical jurisprudence book.

[Debra Arif]

That catalogue index may be useful for what you were suggesting earlier, Robert as it indexed all worldwide papers written concerning mutilation cases. It's hard to read though!

[Robert Linford]

Oh blimey! Extreme magnification required.

[Debra Arif]

Hebbert working in Boston in 1894

As mentioned at the beggining of this thread; The newspaper article (originally found by Robert Linford) quoting Dr Hebbert giving his opinion on the murderer Angus Gilbert and referering back to the Whitechapel cases he had seen in the Boston Sunday Post of December 15, 1895 suggests that Dr Hebbert was working in Boston by at least 1895.

In the 1894 forensic textbook 'A System of Legal Medicine' Hebbert is acknowledged in conjunction with Dr Francis A Harris, for providing details of the Whitechapel cases for inclusion in a medical jurisprudence book for the first time. His lecture papers- 'An Exercise in Forensic Medicine' parts I and II were written and published originally in 1888 and 1889 in the Westminster Hospital reports and dealing with the four dismemberment cases 1887-89 are published in full in the text book. Some brief details about the murder of both Kelly and Mylett are also mentioned without naming the victims.

Francis A Harris M.D. formerly Instructor of Medical Jurisprudence in the Harvard Medical School; Medical Examiner of Suffolk Co. Mass. lived and worked in Boston.

I recently discovered that Dr Hebbert took out a registration in medicine in Boston in November 1894, the year the textbook 'A System of Legal Medicine' was published. That Hebbert worked in Boston around this time is something not documented in biographies of him.


Public Document No 56
First Official List, Practitioners of Medicine, Regsitered by the Board of Registration in Medicine, Being those whose applications were received prior to January 1 1895.
Registration in Medicine
Certificate Number 1.824, Form A, Date of issue, 20 Nov 1894 , Name Hebbert, Charles Alfred, Residence Boston.

Drs Hebbert and Harris are mentioned together in a few Boston cases reported in the papers giving evidence as expert witnesses in court and agreeing on points of forensic evidence. This suggests that Hebbert and Harris worked closely together and may have been doing so in 1894 when Hebbert is credited with providing information on the Whitechapel cases.

The 1895 UK Medical Register gives Hebbert an address in Nottingham in 1895 but in the 1895 Medical Directory there is a note saying no address has been provided.
Boston directories later in the 90s give a c/o address at 7 Water St Boston and the 1894 Boston medical registration says Hebbert is a resident of Boston.

This may be of interest when considering the accuracy of the information contained in a System of Legal Medicine regarding the Kelly and Mylett cases and how it was provided for inclusion.
The information given about Hebbert's opinion on the method used to suffocate Mylett is something not mentioned in any English reports of the time. It was reported in England that Hebbert agreed with Dr Brownfield and his assistant's conclusions on death by homicidal strangulation with a ligature, the perpetrator using both hands crossed over at the back of her neck. In the SOLM text book Hebbert is credited with suggesting Mylett's mouth was covered and her throat compressed. This is a different method to that described by Brownfield.

[Debra Arif]

I forgot to add that Charles A Hebbert, physician, is listed in the City Directory living in Winthrop Massachsettes in 1895.

[Howard Brown]

Outstanding Debs ! Thank you for the report.

[Debra Arif]

Given Hebbert's experience in Whitechapel, and his obvious interest in murders, I can't help thinking that elsewhere in American/Canadian newspapers there are undiscovered interviews with him. One way to find them might be to make a list of mutilation murders occurring in north America c early 1890s to c1922.

Hi Robert
I managed to track down a couple of articles written by Hebbert and published in Canadian Medical Journals in the early 1900's but they were mainly dealing with anatomy and its study. He did get an article titled 'Criminology' published in a publication too but I haven't managed to track that one down yet. It sounds like that could be an interesting one.

[Cris Malone]

Hi Debs,

Would this be it?

https://books.google.com/books?id=lL...ebbert&f=false