A species of combustion without flame, and analogous to that which has been described, is exhibited in the extraordinary phenomenon of the spontaneous combustion of living bodies. That animal bodies are liable to internal combustion, is a fact which was well known to the ancients. Many cases which have been adduced as examples of spontaneous combustion are merely cases of individuals who were highly susceptible of strong electrical excitation. In one of these cases, however, Peter Bovisteau asserts, that the sparks of fire thus produced, reduced to ashes the hair of a young man; and John de Viana informs us, that the wife of Dr. Freilas, physician to the Cardinal de Royas, Archbishop of Toledo, emitted by perspiration an inflammable matter of such a nature, that when the ribbon which she wore over her shift was taken from her, and exposed to the cold air, it instantly took fire, and shot forth like grains of gunpowder. Peter Borelli has recorded a fact of the very same kind respecting a peasant whose linen took fire, whether it was laid up in a box when wet, or hung up in the open air. The same author speaks of a woman who, when at the point of death, vomited flames; and Thomas Bartholin mentions this phenomenon as having often happened to persons who were great drinkers of wine or brandy. Ezekiel de Castro mentions the singular case of Alexandrinus Megetius, a physician, from one of whose vertebræ there issued a fire which scorched the eyes of the beholders; and Krantzius relates, that during the wars of Godfrey of Bouillon, certain people of the territory of Nevers were burning with invisible fire, and that some of them cut off a foot or a hand where the burning began, in order to arrest the calamity. Nor have these effects been confined to man. In the time of the Roman consuls Gracchus and Juventius, a flame is said to have issued from the mouth of a bull without doing any injury to the animal.
The reader will judge of the degree of credit which may belong to these narrations when he examines the effects of a similar kind which have taken place in less fabulous ages, and nearer our own times. John Henry Cohausen informs us that a Polish gentleman in the time of the Queen Bona Sforza, having drunk two dishes of a liquor called brandy-wine, vomited flames, and was burned by them, and Thomas Bartholin[35] thus describes a similar accident: “A poor woman at Paris used to drink spirit of wine plentifully for the space of three years, so as to take nothing else. Her body contracted such a combustible disposition, that one night, when she lay down on a straw couch, she was all burned to ashes except her skull and the extremities of her fingers.” John Christ. Sturmius informs us, in the German Ephemerides, that in the northern countries of Europe flames often evaporate from the stomachs of those who are addicted to the drinking of strong liquors; and he adds, “that seventeen years before, three noblemen of Courland drank by emulation strong liquors, and two of them died scorched and suffocated by a flame which issued from their stomachs.”
One of the most remarkable cases of spontaneous combustion is that of the Countess Cornelia Zangari and Bandi of Cesena, which has been minutely described by the Reverend Joseph Bianchini, a prebend in the city of Verona. This lady, who is in the sixty-second year of her age, retired to bed in her usual health. Here she spent above three hours in familiar conversation with her maid, and in saying her prayers; and having at last fallen asleep, the door of her chamber was shut. As her maid was not summoned at the usual hour, she went into the bed-room to wake her mistress; but receiving no answer, she opened the window, and saw her corpse on the floor in the most dreadful condition. At the distance of four feet from the bed there was a heap of ashes. Her legs, with the stockings on, remained untouched, and the head, half burned, lay between them. Nearly all the rest of the body was reduced to ashes. The air in the room was charged with floating soot. A small oil lamp on the floor was covered with ashes, but had no oil in it; and in two candlesticks, which stood upright upon a table, the cotton wick of both the candles was left, and the tallow of both had disappeared. The bed was not injured, and the blankets and sheets were raised on one side, as if a person had risen up from it. From an examination of all the circumstances of this case, it has been generally supposed that an internal combustion had taken place; that the lady had risen from her bed to cool herself, and that, in her way to open the window, the combustion had overpowered her, and consumed her body by a process in which no flame was produced which could set fire to the furniture or the floor. The Marquis Scipio Maffei was informed by an Italian nobleman who passed through Cesena a few days after this event, that he heard it stated in that town, that the Countess Zangari was in the habit, when she felt indisposed, of washing all her body with camphorated spirit of wine.
So recently as 1744, a similar example of spontaneous combustion occurred in our own country, at Ipswich. A fisherman’s wife, of the name of Grace Pett, of the parish of St. Clement’s, had been in the habit for several years of going down stairs every night, after she was half undressed, to smoke a pipe. She did this on the evening of the 9th of April, 1744. Her daughter, who lay in the same bed with her, had fallen asleep, and did not miss her mother till she awaked early in the morning. Upon dressing herself, and going down stairs, she found her mother’s body lying on the right side, with her head against the grate, and extended over the hearth, with her legs on the deal floor, and appearing like a block of wood burning with a glowing fire without flame. Upon quenching the fire with two bowls of water, the neighbours, whom the cries of the daughter had brought in, were almost stifled with the smell. The trunk of the unfortunate woman was almost burned to ashes, and appeared like a heap of charcoal covered with white ashes. The head, arms, legs, and thighs, were also much burned. There was no fire whatever in the grate, and the candle was burned out in the socket of the candlestick, which stood by her. The clothes of a child on one side of her, and a paper screen on the other, were untouched: and the deal floor was neither singed nor discoloured. It was said that the woman had drunk plentifully of gin overnight in welcoming a daughter who had recently returned from Gibraltar.
Among the phenomena of the natural world which are related to those of spontaneous combustion, are what have been called the natural fire-temples of the Guebres, and the igneous phenomena which are seen in their vicinity. The ancient sect of the Guebres or Parsees, distinguished from all other sects as the worshippers of fire, had their origin in Persia; but, being scattered by persecution, they sought an asylum on the shores of India. Those who refused to expatriate themselves continued to inhabit the shores of the Caspian Sea, and the cities of Ispahan, Yezd, and Kerman. Their great fire-temple, called Attush Kudda, stands in the vicinity of Badku, one of the largest and most commodious ports on the Caspian. In the neighbourhood of this town the earth is impregnated with naphtha, an inflammable mineral oil; and the inhabitants have no other fuel, and no other light, but what is derived from this substance.
The remains of the ancient fire-temples of the Guebres are still visible about ten miles to the north-east of the town. The temple in which the deity is worshipped under the form of fire, is a space about thirty yards square, surrounded with a low wall, and containing many apartments. In each of these a small volcano of sulphureous fire issues from the ground through a furnace or funnel in the shape of a Hindoo altar. On closing the funnel, the fire is instantly extinguished; and by placing the ear at the aperture, a hollow sound is heard, accompanied with a strong current of cold air, which may be lighted at pleasure by holding to it any burning substance. The flame is of a pale, clear colour, without any perceptible smoke, and emits a highly sulphureous vapour, which impedes respiration, unless when the mouth is kept beneath the level of the furnace. This action on the lungs gives the Guebres a wan and emaciated appearance, and oppresses them with a hectic cough, which strangers also feel while breathing this insalubrious atmosphere.
For about two miles in circumference, round the principal fire, the whole ground, when scraped to the depth of two or three inches, has the singular property of being inflamed by a burning coal. In this case, however, it does not communicate fire to the adjacent ground: but if the earth is dug up with a spade, and a torch brought near it, an extensive but instantaneous conflagration takes place, in which houses have often been destroyed, and the lives of the people exposed to imminent danger.
When the sky is clear and the weather serene, the springs in their ebullition do not rise higher than two or three feet; but in gloomy weather, and during the prevalence of stormy clouds, the springs are in a state of the greatest ebullition, and the naphtha, which often takes fire spontaneously at the earth’s surface, flows burning in great quantities to the sea, which is frequently covered with it, in a state of flame, to the distance of several leagues from the shore.
Besides the fires in the temple, there is a large one which springs from a natural cliff in an open situation, and which continually burns. The general space in which this volcanic fire is most abundant is somewhat less than a mile in circuit. It forms a low flat hill, sloping to the sea, the soil of which is a sandy earth, mixed with stones. Mr. Forster did not observe any violent eruption of flame in the country around the Attush Kudda; but Kinneir informs us, that the whole country round Badku has at times the appearance of being enveloped in flames. “It often seems,” he adds, “as if the fire rolled down from the mountains in large masses, and with incredible velocity; and during the clear moonshine nights of November and December, a bright blue light is observed at times to cover the whole western range. The fire does not consume; and if a person finds himself in the middle of it, no warmth is felt.”
The inhabitants apply these natural fires to domestic purposes, by sinking a hollow cane or merely a tube of paper, about two inches in the ground, and by blowing upon a burning coal held near the orifice of the tube, there issues a slight flame, which neither burns the cane nor the paper. By means of these canes or paper tubes, from which the fire issues, the inhabitants boil the water in their coffee-urns, and even cook different articles of food. The flame is put out by merely plugging up the orifice. The same tubes are employed for illuminating houses that are not paved. The smell of naphtha is of course diffused through the house: but after any person is accustomed to it, it ceases to be disagreeable. The inhabitants also employ this natural fire in calcining lime. The quantity of naphtha procured in the plain to the south-east of Badku is enormous. It is drawn from wells, some of which yield from 1,000 to 1,500lbs. per day. As soon as these wells are emptied, they fill again till the naphtha rises to its original level.[36]