CHEMICAL SCIEXCE. 255 



possible spherical. This nucleus was in length equal to about one- 

 half the diameter of the sphere, and in breadth about one-eighth. 

 What was the nature of these bodies ? They were certainly not 

 either spheres of oil, or bubbles of air ; there was not the slightest 

 probability of the former substance being present ; air bubbles they 

 also could not be ; the specimen had been at rest in spirit for a very 

 considerable time, while as more positive evidence of their cell structure 

 I would adduce the peculiar nucleus, which in all was oblong, and did 

 not disappear under any conditions of light. May we then regard 

 them as nucleolated nuclei, or small nucleated cells? These dis- 

 coveries have filled me with the highest hopes of seeing before long 

 some large advances made in this hitherto almost unworked field of 

 investigation." 



ON SPONTANEOUS HUMAN COMBUSTION. 



MM. BISCHOFF and LIEBIG, employed as experts in the recent 

 celebrated case of the Countess of Gorlitz, not onlv declared that 



* 



her case presented an example of post mortem burning, which proved 

 to be true, but took the occasion absolutely to deny the trustworthi- 

 ness of any of the cases of spontaneous human combustion on record. 

 This position M. Devergie combats, founding his argument upon the 

 consideration of a case which occurred to himself, and of the vari- 

 ous accounts of other examples that have been recorded by trustworthy 

 persons. Although the term spontaneous is not strictly a correct one, 

 inasmuch as there has always been an immediate cause of the combus- 

 tion, he retains it for want of a better; and he considers the leading 

 characteristic of these cases to be the absence of harmony between the 

 mass of the parts burned and the feebleness of the ayent of combus- 

 tion. He enumerates the following peculiarities, as exemplified by 

 most of the facts on record : 1. The extent and depth of the burns, 

 as compared with the feeble proportion of combustible matter employed 

 in their production. 2. Indulgence in spirituous liquors by the vic- 

 tims. 3. The far greater frequency of the occurrence in women, and 

 especially in old women. 4. The presence of an accidental determin- 

 ing cause. 5. So complete is the combustion in some cases that 

 nothing but the ashes remain, and these are always of the same fatty 

 soot. 6. The combustion while acting on a mass of flesh and fat has 

 usually spared highly inflammable bodies in the vicinity. 7. The 

 flame when seen has always been described as of a blueish color and 

 as inextinguishable. M. Devergie points out how these circumstances 

 differ from those observed in the Countess's case and in death from 

 ordinary combustion. When this extends from the clothes to the 

 person, very large superficial burns are produced, which from their 

 very size prove fatal ; but there is no instance of bodies becoming 

 completely carbonized or reduced to the condition in which they are 

 found in these cases. It is true, that when the amount of combustible 

 body exists in due proportion to the body to be burned we may see 

 such effects produced, but the absence of this relation is the prime 



