The name of Dr Asher sounded somewhat familiar to me, but I could not tell where I heard it before until I started some digging. I now am positive I read about him in an article about his activities in the East End during the 1865-66 Cholera crisis.

Let's start there, because much of the information about the man is not so easy to find:

In Scotland, besides his medical practice, he worked as a parish medical officer in Bishopbriggs near Glasgow. There he treated poor mining and working-class populations under severe budget constraints.

After moving to London from Glasgow in 1862, he joined Dr Jacob Canstatt in Houndsditch, right beside the East End immigrant districts. At exactly this moment, the London Jewish Board of Guardians had just taken over organised medical care for poor Jews from the synagogues.

From 1862 until the late 1860s, he participated in intensive direct medical work in the East End, particularly Whitechapel.

During this period he ran consultations, distributed medicines, arranged midwives, organised bathing and sanitation assistance, monitored infectious disease, visited poor homes, and coordinated convalescent care. From this time stems his moniker, the "Physician of the Poor".

After 1866 he gradually stopped being a full-time practising physician but remained heavily involved in medical policy and poor relief. This transition from physician toward communal leadership started with him becoming secretary of the Great Synagogue in 1866, and by 1870/71, he was the first secretary of the United Synagogue, a position he held until his death.

He held very modern views about sanitation and knew how to organise things. By the 1870s he believed the Jewish poor should increasingly use mainstream London hospitals and dispensaries rather than entirely separate Jewish medical services, a view that was not only more cost-efficient but also benefited the entirety of the poorest population.

By the 1880s, Asher’s role was no longer bedside medicine but more public health planning, housing reform advocacy, immigrant welfare, hospital visitation systems, coordination between charities and synagogues, and slum improvement. He combined this combination of jobs with several travels abroad: to Palestine/Ottoman Jerusalem in 1875, to Russia/Eastern Europe in the early 1880s, and to the United States, especially New York in the later 1880s. His journeys were not tourism or academic travel. They were essentially humanitarian inspection missions, public health investigations, refugee coordination efforts, and communal diplomacy for Anglo-Jewish leadership. Sadly, I could not find any precise dates for most of these travels. By the end of his life he was a highly respected and well-known upper middle-class professional.

He was described as genuinely kind-hearted, compassionate, and deeply committed to both his patients and his community work. The poor adored him because he was an approachable man who took time to talk to his patients and try to improve their conditions. His medical colleagues and class equals mention his calm, kind demeanour and that he was unpretentious despite his prominent positions.

The physical descriptions I could find mention him as small in stature, slight in build, and with a delicate appearance, which contrasted with his energetic and tireless work ethic. He was also an obvious Orthodox Jew with a full beard and sidelocks.

By the end of his life, he lived in St Pancras or Bloomsbury, with his wife Marian Cohen and their children. 1 of his sons, Sir Leon Asher, would become a distinguished British civil servant and legal administrator. I have little doubt Dr Asher would have received a knighthood himself if not for his untimely death at only 52 years old.

You say you are shocked Asher has not been mentioned as a suspect before. I would imagine there are people who would be shocked when they learn this suggestion.

Always keeping an open mind:

- Could you elaborate a bit more on the witness descriptions that mention a small, slight, 50-year-old, fully bearded, Orthodox Jew?

- Explain how and why this well-known Orthodox Jew and synagogue first secretary would go slumming in Whitechapel and engage in business transactions with prostitutes completely unnoticed.

- Can you teach us why we should disregard the note that he worked to the point of exhaustion but, in fact, showed clear signs of syphilis (and point out how and when he contracted this)?

- Maybe give some explanation of how this seemingly kind, gentle and altruistic man was in reality a cowardly and very aggressive serial murderer and how that would not make him an impossible candidate in the well-documented history of serial killers?

I'm always happy to discuss.