Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/142

 138 COMBUSTION" (SPONTANEOUS) composition is hastened by the heaps being wet with the rains, are often seen in combustion from this cause. The liability to it seriously affects the value of those coals in which pyri- tes is found in considerable quantity, rendering it hazardous even to transport them by ships. In 1794 a fire occurred from this cause in the royal shipyard in Copenhagen, which consumed 1,600 tons of coal and 1,400 houses. The rapid absorption of water by quicklime is also attended with development of heat sufficient to ignite combustible bodies in contact with the lime. Freshly burned charcoal has the property of absorbing moisture and rapidly condensing it in its pores, generating thereby so much heat that it is set on fire. This often occurs about collieries and in the wagons used for transporting the coal from the woods, and is commonly attributed to the fire not being entirely extinguished in all the pieces of char- coal. Several cases are recorded in the "American Journal of Science" (vol. xlii., 1842, pp. 169 to 195) of combustion occurring in heaps of hard-wood ashes which had long lain undisturbed. The cause not being under- stood, they were in several instances regarded as cases of spontaneous combustion. It would seem, however, that addition of fresh ashes had been made to the heaps within a few days, or 14 at the most. Still no satisfactory ex- planation is given of the manner in which a heap of 25 bushels, accumulated during two years previous, could become completely igni- ted, as occurred in the cellar of President Lord of Dartmouth college ; nor how the combus- tion could commence in the centre of a box of ashes which had received no addition for about two weeks, as described by Dr. J. T. Plummer of Richmond, Ind. Such instances, however they may be explained, exhibit the danger in- curred by placing ashes in wooden vessels or in contact with combustible bodies ; and the dan- ger would appear to be at all times imminent, though the ashes may have thus remained quietly for two years. Human Spontaneous Com- bustion. This is now generally believed to be a fiction ; but it has been used with great ef- fect by modern temperance lecturers and by novelists. Herman Melville so disposes of an obnoxious character in " Redburn " (1849) ; and Dickens, in "Bleak House " (1853), made the case of Krook famous, and excited an ani- mated discussion which revived public interest in the subject. But that it has been firmly believed by many eminent medical authorities, and has been a matter of earnest though not entirely satisfactory inquiry by others, will be evident from the citation of the following au- thorities and cases. Fodere notes an instance which occurred in Lyons in 1644. Devergie, in his M'edecine legate, records 20 cases, the earliest in 1692, and two thirds of them before the beginning of the present century. The Dictionnaire de Medecine, article Combustion humaine, cites the opinions of different writers down to the year 1833. Dr. Apjohn, in the "Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine," gives what he considers authentic cases. The fullest information on the subject is in the Journal de Physique, in an article by Pierre Aime" Lair, translated and published in "Philosophical Transactions," vol. vi. Among the remark- able cases recorded are the following : Le Cat narrates that while he was lodging in the house of Millet at Rheims, on the morning of Feb. 20, 1725, the body of Mme. Millet, a habitual in- ebriate, was found at the distance of a foot and a half from the hearth in her kitchen. A part of the head only, with a portion of the lower extremities and a few of the vertebrae, had escaped combustion. A small portion of the floor under the body had been consumed, but a kneading trough and a tub which stood very near were uninjured. Millet was arrest- ed for the murder of his wife, a supposed in- trigue with his servant girl furnishing the mo- tive. He was tried and convicted; but on appeal to a superior court he was acquitted on the plea of spontaneous combustion. A more celebrated case, six years later, was that of the countess Cornelia de Baudi Cesenati, of Vero- na. She was 62 years old, and was accustom- ed to bathe in camphorated spirits of wine. Retiring one night in good health, the next morning her body was found on the floor, four feet from the bed, a mass of cinders. The walls and furniture of her room, and the walls, shelves, and utensils in an adjoining kitchen, were coated with a moist black soot, and a crust of bread was so contaminated that it was rejected by the cat. Prebendary Giuseppe Bianchini minutely investigated the case, and published an account of it at Verona in 1731, and afterward at Rome. It furnished, as is in- timated in the preface to " Bleak House," the precedent for the remarkable death of Krook. " The appearances beyond all rational doubt observed in that case," says Dickens, " are the appearances observed in Mr. Krook's case." The case of Mary Clues first appeared in the "Annual Register" for 1773. She was 50 years old, and was much addicted to intox- ication. One night she retired, leaving a lighted candle on a chair near her bed. The next morning her remains were found on the floor between the bed and the chimney. The skin, muscles, and viscera were destroyed ; the bones of the cranium, breast, spine, and upper extremities were calcined and covered with a whitish efflorescence ; one leg and a thigh were still entire. The room was filled with a very disagreeable vapor ; the walls and everything in the room were blackened; but, except the body, nothing exhibited any very strong traces of fire. An almost parallel case is that of Grace Pitt, aged 60, published in the " Trans- actions of the Royal Society of London " in 1774. Foder6 records the remarkable death of Don Gio Maria Bertholi, in 1776. The ac- count is abridged by Paris and Fonblanque in their " MedicalJurisprudence," and the case is one of the best authenticated to be found.