The Autobiography of Jack the Ripper by James Carnac Page B

enough now to know what’s what and if you don’t you soon will know it. But be careful and don’t make a damned fool of yourself. For one thing don’t begin to think of getting tied up to some young woman by marrying her. A young man married is a young man marred. And above all, my boy—while we’re on the subject—do be careful. Many a youngster’s been ruined for life by catching something; you’ll soon learn all about that as You’re going to be a doctor. But remember, Jim, if you do get into any sort of trouble you’ve got an old uncle to come to; and that old uncle ain’t a canting saint.”
    I have thought that fathers might do worse than give similar advice to their sons. And shall I be thought unduly cynical in saying that it has afforded me a certain amount of satisfaction to know that I have always observed my uncle’s advice on the matter of cards?
    â€”
    It would be unprofitable, and would occupy too much time, for me to set down here the details of my daily life in London at that period; that life was the life of the average medical student and can have but little interest for the reader in comparison with the details of my later activities, an account of which is, after all, the main justification for this book.
    I could write much on the subject of the dissecting-room, that rather uncanny, vault-like room where the “subjects” were raised out of “pickle” by means of a kind of ship’s tackle; of old Henry, the red-headed demonstrator with his wart-covered hands. Of the Hunterian museum with its pickled specimens in their large jars of spirit—a museum which, being unavailable to the ordinary sightseer, might form the subject of quite an interesting description. That museum I know well, and I recall that after my first visit to it my stomach experienced certain qualms on perceiving the nature of the meal prepared for me upon my return home. It consisted of pork-chops; white meat. Perhaps only a person who has visited the museum will appreciate the niceties of this point.
    Practical anatomy which I took up in due course was, of all my studies, the branch which interested me the most. There is something fascinating to me in the very feel of the flesh under the razor-like edge of the scalpel; it cuts almost like cold ham. And the process of methodically taking to bits a human member, such as an arm, I found extraordinarily engrossing. Of course, we students were not given each an entire carcass on which to operate; “subjects” could not be purchased by the score. We had to content ourselves with an arm, a leg or, in partnership, a trunk. And a certain drawback, to my mind, lay in the absence of blood.
    When, later on in my course, I attended the operating theatre to see my first operation, I was one of the few younger students who was not, judging by observation, afflicted with nausea.

Chapter 10
    In reading what I have so far written I am appalled by the relatively small amount of ground I have covered; I am becoming increasingly aware of my insufficiency as a writer. When I began this autobiography I had no intention of involving myself in the compilation of several volumes of reminiscences, and it is evident that unless I can curb my tendency to dwell in detail upon what I regard as the more interesting events of my early career—which is probably a manifestation of the tendency to verbosity usual in a person of my years—I shall never maintain the energy to complete this record. I must therefore refrain from a detailed account of my life at the medical school and the few friends I made there—which would be, after all, irrelevant—and press on with my story.
    I did not qualify as a doctor, for I did not complete my course of studies. Circumstances (I cannot think of a better word) conspired against me; and when I say “circumstances” I am thinking of one particular event which, in itself, was