Shining Fish, Flesh, and Wood 493 



necessity of air for the luminescence of " shining " wood and flesh, 

 but at that time oxygen was not recognized as an element. Achard's 

 gases were too impure to give the proper conclusion, so that Spal- 

 lanzani must be credited with first proving the necessity of dissolved 

 oxygen for bioluminescences in general. Carradori, Tychsen, Gaert- 

 ner, Boeckmann, von Humboldt, and Hulme had the correct ap- 

 proach but unfortunately drew some wrong conclusions. 



Early Nineteenth-Century Views 



The studies of gases on spontaneous phosphorescence had the 

 general effect, despite some dissension, of emphasizing the oxidative 

 nature of the light-emitting process and its similarity to the glow of 

 phosphorus. With the beginning of the nineteenth century, the 

 " phosphorus theory " of the light of wood and flesh was the domi- 

 nant one, although not by any means universally accepted. The 

 varied opinions expressed by prominent men will illustrate how far 

 from the truth some of the theories were. 



The light from wood excited curiosity but did not lead to the 

 philosophical speculation induced by the luminescence of flesh. It 

 was not possible to apply to wood the view of Puerarius {De Carnis 

 Lucentihus, 1667) , regarding meat, that the fatty lumbar parts of 

 the luminous mutton at Montpellier were brightest because they 

 are especially warm and the stimuli of desire arise from this region, 

 or to adopt the point of view expressed in Paullin's (1687) story of 

 the luminous hen's eggs, that the hen had been fertilized by " un 

 coq tres ardent." 



Pierre Jean George Cabanis (1747-1808), the eminent French 

 physician and philosopher, friend of Diderot, D'Alembert, Mira- 

 beau, and Franklin, was one early writer, who did attribute the 

 light of flesh to phosphorus, although he could not entirely abandon 

 the belief that activity and desire were factors in producing the 

 light. As a member of the medical profession, he had observed the 

 luminescence of cadavers, and as a philosopher, he interpreted what 

 he had seen. His views were expressed in a book. Rapports du 

 Physique et du Moral de I'Homme (1802). The sixth memoire *® 

 of the book was entitled, " De I'lnfluence des Temperaments sur la 

 Formation des Idees et des Affections Morales." Cabanis wrote: " in 

 the bodies of animals which decompose, phosphorus can undergo a 

 slow combustion ^vithout producing a true flame " or " igniting 

 combustible bodies " and this fact " has given much credence to 

 those visions which one dreads and which one generally finds near 



*8 J. G. Cabanis, (Euvres 3: 379-381, Paris, 1824. 



