Considerable Anatomical Knowledge Shown

THE WHITECHAPEL HORROR.
FISHING FOR CLUES - INQUEST DISCLOSURES.

LONDON, September 21.

Another week has passed, and the Whitechapel murders are mysterious still. All hopes of finding the assassin have, indeed, been long ago abandoned, save by the indomitable Sir Charles Warren and the indefatigable Detective Superintendent Abberline. The last-named officer, you may remember, was the one who defeated the Jubilee Day dynamitard plot and brought the last of the famous gang to justice. He does not pretend to be a Lecocq, but, given a clue, he can follow it up as well as any man. The Whitechapel murders are perplexing and confounding because of the total absence of clues. The nearest approach to one transpired in the course of the medical evidence at the inquests, but the suggestions it implies are so horrible I scarcely like to name them. The doctors declare that in both poor women's corpses the womb was cut out and taken away, and that the operations showed the murderer to be possessed of considerable anatomical knowledge. The inference an American detective, who was interviewed by the "Star" the other day, draws from this is that the murder was committed either by a doctor or medical student who makes a specialty of diseases of the womb. When one remembers what frightful cruelties medical and surgical enthusiasts have committed in the so-called cause of science, this thesis really does not seem beyond the bounds of possibility. In the case of the woman killed in Hanbury-street, the doctors declare that the murderer was busily at work for at least twenty minutes. "With my surgical knowledge I couldn't have accomplished the mutilation in less time," deposed one witness. The police cannot, however, learn that any well-dressed man was seen prowling about Whitechapel that night.

Source: Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 316, 14 November 1888, Page 3

Note: As the list of suspects continue to grow out of every nook and cranny, let us never forget the inquest testimony and post-mortem data of each of the Whitechapel murders, and notice how even the police surgeons of the day noticed the killer's anatomical and surgical prowess. If the suspect that you prefer did not have medical knowledge, just how good of a suspect are they? For instance, when did Leo Taxil obtain his medical degree and from which academic institution?