VOL. XLIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 143 



sparkling like fire; and truly such flames would often rise in us, if the natural 

 jnoisture did not quench them ; as Lucretius observes, from verse 868, lib. 4, 

 and verse IO65 lib. 6. Moreover, Marcellus Donatus, in his Mirab. Hist. Medic, 

 lib. 6, cap. 4, entitled, of a new distemper, says, Albcrtus Krantzius, lib. 5, of 

 his Saxon History, that, in the time of Godfrey of Bologne's Christian War, in 

 the territory of Niverva or Nivers, people were burning of invisible fire in their 

 entrails, and some had cut off a foot or a hand where the burning began, that it 

 should not go further. Ezekiel de Castro, in the abovesaid work of his, of 

 lambent fire, relates the famous instance of Alexandrirms Megetius, a physician, 

 who, from the vertebra of the coxa, after great pain, relates how fire came out, 

 which burned the eyes, as Simplicius and Philaseus, eye-witnesses, attested. 



After all these instances, what wonder is there in the case of our old lady ? Her 

 dulness before going to bed was an effect of too much heat concentrated in her 

 breast, which hindered the perspiration through the pores of her body; which is 

 calculated to about 40 oz. per night. Her ashes, found at 4 feet distance from 

 her bed, are a i:)lain argument, that she, by natural instinct, rose up to cool her 

 heat, and perhaps was going to open a window. The Marquis Scipio Maffei was 

 told by Count Atimis of Gorizia, who passed through Cesena a few days after the 

 accident, that he heard say there that the old lady was used, when she felt her- 

 self indisposed, to bathe all her body with camphorated spirit of wine; and she 

 did it perhaps that very night. This is not a circumstance of any moment; for 

 the best opinion is that of the internal heat and fire; which, by having been 

 kindled in the entrails, naturally tended upwards; finding the way easier, and the 

 matter more unctuous and combustible, left the legs untouched ; which may have 

 been saved also, by remaining cut off at the combustion of the tendons, where 

 they join with the knees. The thighs were too near the origin of the fire, and 

 therefore, were also burnt by it; which was certainly increased by the urine and 

 excrements, a very combustible matter, as we may see by its phosphorus. 

 Galenus (Class. 1, lib. 3, de Temperam.) says, that the dung of a dove was 

 sufficient to set fire to a whole house: and the learned father Casati, a Jesuit, in 

 his Phys. Dissert, part 2, p. 48, relates that he heard a worthy gentleman say, 

 that, from great quantities of the dung of doves, flights of which used, for many 

 years, nay ages, to build under the roof of the great church of Pisa, spnmg 

 originally the fire which consumed the said church.* After all this, the author 

 concludes, that to be sure the lady was burnt to ashes standing; drawing the con- 

 sequence from her skull fallen perjiendicular between her legs ; and that the back- 

 part of her head had been damaged more than the fore-part, was because of her 



• Which effect is confirmed by Galen, lib. 2, de Morb. Diss. cap. 2; where he says, that he has 

 seen pigeons dung take fire, when it was become rotten. — Orig. 



