SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION OF THE HUMAN BODY. In medico-legal works, cases are recorded, generally of a somewhat ancient date, in which it was supposed that the body was either spontaneously consumed by inward combustion, or acquired such extra ordinary combustible properties as to be consumed when brought into contact with fire. The following is the first of one of the -cases on record. It rests on the authority of Le Cat, a distinguished surgeon of his time, and is stated to have occurred at Rheims in 1725. The remains of a woman named Millet were found burned in her kitchen, about eightecA inches from the open fireplace. Nothing was left of the body except some parts of the head, of the legs, and of the vertebra;. Suspicion was excited against the husband, and a criminal inquiry was instituted; but learned experts reported that the case was one of spontaneous combustion, and the prisoner was acquitted. The facts are explicable on the supposition that the clothes of I he deceased woman were accidentally ignited ; and although the almost complete destruction of the body appeared to the medical men of that time to be inconsistent with the ordinary effects of fire, subsequent observations have shown that this is an error. In reference to,this case, Liebig observes that it is easy to see that the idea of spontaneous combustion arose at a time when men entertained entirely false views on the subject of combustion, its essence, and its cause. What takes place in combustion generally has only been known since the time of Lavoisier (about a century ago), and the conditions which must be combined in order that a body should continue to burn, have only been known since the time of Davy, or for little more than half a century. From the time when the case of Millet occurred to the present day, probably somewhat over 50 supposed cases have been recorded. (In an article published on the subject by Dr. Frank of Berlin in 1843, 45 cases are.adduced.) From an analysis of all the cases on record up to 1851, Liebig arrives at the conclusion that the great majority agree in tho following points: "1. They took place in winter. 2. The victims were brandy-drinkers in a state of intoxication. 0. They happened where the rooms are heated by fires in open fireplaces and by pans of glowing charcoal, in England, France, and Italy. In Germany and Russia, where rooms are heated by means of closed stoves, cases of death ascribed to spontaneous combustion are exceedingly rare. 4. It is admitted that no one has ever been present during the combustion. 5. None of the physicians who collected the cases, or attempted to explain them, has ever observed the process, or ascertained what preceded the combustion. 6. It is also unknown how much time had elapsed from the commence merit of the combustion to the moment when the consumed body was found."—Lettem on Chemistry, 3d ed. 1851, p. 282. Out of the 45 cases collected by Frank, there are only three in regard to which it is assumed that combustion took place when no fire was in the neighborhood; and Liebig distinctly shows that these three solitary cases are totally unworthy of belief. With regard to the other cases, the writers who record them do not
deny the presence of fire, but assume that the body was ignited by the fire, and then burned on like a candle or a bundle of straw, under similar conditions, till nothing but ashes or charcoal was left. These writers maintain that excess of fat, and the presence of brandy in the body, induce an abnormal condition of easy combustibility; but Liebig shows, by numerous illustrations, the utter fallacy of this view; and adds, as further evidence. " the fact that hundreds of fat, well-fed brandy-drinkers do not burn when by accident or design they come too near a fire. It may with certainty lie predicted that, so long as the circulation continues, their bodies would not take fire, even if they held a. hand in the fire till it was charred."—Spontaneous combustion in a living body is (he adds) absolutely impossible. Notwithstanding the wide promulgation of Liebig's views, the belief in the possible occurrence of spontaneous combustion seems not yet to have disappeared. In 1847 the body of a man, aged 71, and who was neither fat nor a drunk ard, was found in bed in a state of combustion. Dr. Nasson, who was commissioned to investigate the case, reported that the burning must have resulted from some inherent cause in the person—probably roused into activity by a hot brick that was placed at his feet; and Orlila is reported to have coincided in this opinion. This case is reported in the Gazette Medicate, Sept. 4, 1847. On June 13, 1847, the countess of Goerlitz was found dead in her bedroom, with the upper part of her body partly consumed by fire. The head was a nearly shapeless black mass, with the charred tongue protruding from it. The physician who was consulted could suggest no other explanation than that the body of the countess must have taken fire spontaneously, and not even by ignition of her dress by a candle. On this evidence she was buried; but circumstances having led to the sus picion that she had been murdered by her valet Stauff (who had been detected in attempt ing to-poison the count), her body was exhumed in Aug., 1818, fourteen months after her death, and was subjected to a special examination by the Hesse medical co!lege,who reported that she had not died from spontaneous combustion. The case was then referred to Liebig and Bischoff, and their report was issued in Mar., 1850, when Stauff was put upon his trial. They found no difficulty in concluding that the body was wil fully burned after death, for the purpose of concealing the murder (either by strangula tion or a blow on the head) which had been previously perpetrated. The prisoner was convicted, and subsequently confessed that he had committed the murder by strangula tion, as indeed the protruded tongue might have suggested. Since that date there has not been any case of alleged spontaneous combustion.—On this subject the reader is referred to the various articles on " Spontaneous Combustion" in the medical dictionaries and encyclopaedias; to Dupuytren's Lepons Orates,. to Liebig's Letters on Chemistry; and to Taylor's Medical Jurisprudence.