106 EMISSION OF LIGHT BY 



phosphorescence of a neck of veal, which shone in 

 more than twenty places, as decayed wood or putre- 

 fying fish, do. 



In 1 838, M. Julia de Fontenelle related in his 

 ' Journal des Sciences Physiques et Chimiques/ 

 a curious case of phosphorescent light observed 

 upon the dead body of a man. Such cases of 

 phosphorescence are not unfrequent in dissecting 

 rooms, but often escape observation, as neither 

 students nor professors visit these rooms at night, 

 and when a person does happen to enter them 

 after dark, the light he carries in his hand is too 

 powerful to allow him to perceive the phosphoric 

 radiations which often emanate from fragments of 

 dead bodies lying about. 



As this chapter is devoted exclusively to the 

 phosphorescence of animal matter which has lost 

 its vitality, I have reserved certain observations 

 concerning evolutions of light by living subjects 

 for a future one. 



All the observations we possess regarding the 

 nature of the light emitted by dead animal matter 

 coincide with those of Robert Boyle, published as 

 stated above, in the year 1672. When all the lucid 

 parts of the shining neck of veal were surveyed 

 at once, they made, he tells us, " a very splendid 

 show." By applying a printed paper to some of 

 the more luminous spots, divers letters of the title 

 could be distinguished. But notwithstanding the 



