Electroluminescence 267 



or rubbed, was known to all observers and usually mentioned when 

 luminous phenomena were listed, as appears in the writings of J. C. 

 Scaliger, J. Cardan, F. Bacon, T. Bartolin, P. Borel, R. Boyle, W. 

 Simpson, Newton, and others. 



Many accounts have to do with ignis lambens connected with bed 

 clothes or wearing apparel rather than the human body. In the 

 Speculum Mundi (1635) of John Swan, it is reported that persons 

 " testify how they have been scared in their beds by a kinde of light 

 sticking to their coverings, like dew upon the nap of a frieze coat: 

 which must needs be this Ignis Lambens, caused by some kinde of 

 clammie sweat proceeding from among them." 



Rudolph Jacob Camerarius (1665-1721), professor of botany at 

 the University of Tubingen, and his brother, Elias Camerarius 

 (1672-1734) , professor of medicine at Tubingen, both described 

 linen shining at night in 1690 and 1691.-^ The subjects were young 

 men of good " temperament," whose physical characteristics were 

 described in some detail, as possibly bearing on the origin of the 

 light, which struck terror in the men, and in friends who observed 

 it. A peculiarity of one subject was that he sweated a great deal 

 and was the only person in his family with this characteristic. 



The phenomenon appeared especially when the linen was rubbed 

 and it made no difference whether the material was hot or cold, had 

 been washed in different ways at different times, or whether the man 

 changed his dwelling to a place many miles away. There was no 

 heat, no smoke, no odor, good or bad, and the linen was not burnt. 

 Although minute sparks were seen, the electrical origin of the light 

 was not suspected at that time. The appearance was compared by 

 E. Camerarius to various phosphors— the glowworm and rotten wood 

 and fish— in fact the light of the linen was classed as a natural 

 phosphorus. 



There are too many old accounts of luminous clothes and lumi- 

 nous hair to warrant tabulation, but they always excited interest, 

 and were supposed to be connected with some peculiarity or act of 

 the individual. Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) , famous physician and 

 naturalist, successor to Newton as president of the Royal Society, 

 knew " a Bristol gentleman and his son, both whose stockings will 

 shine after much walking, like glow-worms or shining beetles." -''" 

 Robert Symmer (1759) also observed the shining of silk stockings. 



Johann Friedrich Henkel (1679-1744) , a physician in Freiburg 

 interested in plants and minerals, in 1740, and Sigismund Friedrich 



"'' Translations of the original Latin articles in the Ephemerides will be found in 

 the Collection Academique Etranger 6: 316, 320, and 336. 

 ''^ From T. Knight, 1749: 56. 



