A kidney from hell? A nephrological view of the Whitechapel murders in 1888

Nephrology, Dialysis, Transplantation : Official Publication of the European Dialysis and Transplant Association - European Renal Association
Gunter Wolf

Abstract

In the poor Whitechapel district of the East End of London in the fall of 1888, at least five prostitutes were brutally murdered, and in all but one case, also mutilated. The murderer was never caught and became known by his nickname 'Jack the Ripper'. The left kidney and the uterus were cut out and taken away from one of the victims named Catherine Eddowes. A kidney was also cut out of the body from another victim, but not taken away. Two weeks later, George Lusk, president of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, received a small cardboard box with half of a longitudinally divided kidney and a letter entitled 'From hell' claiming that the kidney inside the box was taken from the victim. The kidney was brought to Dr Thomas Horrocks Openshaw, the Curator of the London Pathological Museum, where the kidney could be microscopically examined. The press jumped on the topic and made a circumstantial case that this kidney had been indeed torn from the body of Catherine Eddowes. According to the later memoirs of Major Henry Smith of the City Police published more than 20 years after the incident, the kidney left in the corpse of Catherine Eddowes was in an advanced stage of Bright's disease and the kidney sent to George Lusk was in exa...Continue Reading

References

Jan 1, 1975·International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine·S Shuster
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Mar 1, 1981·The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology·W G Eckert
Jan 1, 1994·American Journal of Nephrology·J D Kopple
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Nov 4, 2005·Journal of the American Society of Nephrology : JASN·Garabed Eknoyan
Aug 3, 2006·Journal of Forensic Sciences·Wade C MyersMary Ellen O'Toole

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Citations

Mar 13, 2019·Journal of Forensic Sciences·Jari Louhelainen, David Miller

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