SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. 367 



used for lamps will require half an ounce of alcohol to 

 keep the wire red hot for eight hours. This lamp has 

 been kept burning for sixty hours ; but it can scarcely be 

 recommended for a bed-room, as an acid vapour is disen- 

 gaged during the burning of the alcohol. When perfumes 

 are dissolved in the alcohol, they are diffused through the 

 apartment during the slow combustion of the vapour. 



A species of combustion without flame, and analogous 

 to that which has been described, is exhibited in the 

 extraordinary phenomena 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 ex- 

 amples 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 Mege- 

 tius, a physician, from one of whose vertebrae there issued 

 a fire which scorched the eyes of the beholders; and 

 Krantzius relates, that during the wars of Godfrey of 



