478 History of Luminescence 



tures of luminous bacteria could be grown on boiled eggs. It is 

 possible that the uncooked reptile and bird eggs also became infected 

 with luminous bacteria. 



In addition to luminous eggs of various kinds, there are many 

 records of human corpses which became luminescent. A particu- 

 larly informative example is described in a later section (Shining 

 Flesh and Animalcules) in which the observers (Cooper and Cooper, 

 1838) saw light on a body in a dissecting room and almost came to 

 the correct conclusion regarding the origin of the light. Of even 

 greater interest are the records of luminescence of wounds, which 

 were apparently fairly common among soldiers, according to the 

 account of Percy and Laurent (1820). It was generally believed 

 that a luminous wound would in most cases heal and very seldom 

 leave a scar. 



The light of luminous wounds in Baron Percy's day, when anti- 

 sepsis was not practiced, undoubtedly came from luminous bacteria. 

 It is much more difficult to ascribe a cause to luminescence of human 

 breath (Watson, 1845), skin, sweat (Henkel, 1740, 1785; Panceri, 

 1871) and urine, all of which have been described. Electrolumines- 

 cence from electrical discharges was in most cases probably observed, 

 as described in Chapter VII, although this explanation is not too 

 clearly indicated in some of the accounts (See Hermbstadt, 1808; 

 Donoven, 1840; Sharkey, 1840; Marsh, 1842: Collier, 1842-1843; 

 Wood. 1844; M'Cormac, 1846). 



By far the most frequent records deal with luminous urine, which 

 has been observed from time to time since the paper of S. Reisel 

 (1625-1702) in 1688, followed by reports of Jurine (1813) , Guyton- 

 Morveau (1814), Driessen (1818), Esser (1826), Kastner (1826), 

 and Fallot (1847-1848) . As late as 1872, P. Panceri reported a letter 

 from Anton Dohrn, famous founder of the Stazione Zoologica at 

 Naples, saying that his urine was once luminous. In Reisel's own 

 case, it is most probable that he urinated on luminous earthworms 

 or centipedes, which then gave off the light, but such an explanation 

 cannot be applied to many of the reports, and it is necessary to fall 

 back on luminous bacterial infection or the reflection of a dim 

 light as the most likely origin. A particularly baffling case of re- 

 ported luminescence is that of the blood and entrails of a newly 

 shot porcupine, by L. Moreau. The account was published in 

 Nature for 1897. 



