Phillips concluded that Chapman suffered from a long-standing lung disease, that she was sober at the time of her death, and that she had not consumed alcoholic beverages for at least some hours before death. He was of the opinion that the murderer must have possessed anatomical knowledge to have sliced out her reproductive organs in a single movement with a blade about 6–8 inches (15–20 cm) long. However, the idea that the murderer possessed surgical skill was dismissed by other experts. As her body was not examined extensively at the scene, it has also been suggested that the organ was removed by mortuary staff, who took advantage of bodies that had already been opened to extract organs that they could then sell as surgical specimens. In his summing up, Coroner Baxter raised the possibility that Chapman was murdered deliberately to obtain the uterus, on the basis that an American had made enquiries at a London medical school for the purchase of such organs. "The Lancet" rejected Baxter's suggestion, scathingly pointing out "certain improbabilities and absurdities", and saying it was "a grave error of judgement". The "British Medical Journal" was similarly dismissive, and reported that the physician who requested the samples was a highly reputable doctor, unnamed, who had left the country 18 months before the murder. Baxter dropped the theory and never referred to it again. The "Chicago Tribune" claimed the American doctor was from Philadelphia, and author Philip Sugden later speculated that the man in question was the notorious Francis Tumblety.