VOL, LXIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 535 



was an occasional attendant, left her as well as usual, locked up her door, and 

 went home. He had placed 2 bits of coal quite backward on the fire in the 

 grate, and put a small rush-light in a candlestick, which was set in a chair, near 

 the head of the bed; but not on the side where the curtain was. At half after 

 5 the next morning, a smoke was observed to come out of the window in the 

 street; and, on breaking open the door, some flames were perceived in the room, 

 which, with 5 or 6 buckets of water, were easily extinguished. Between the 

 bed and fire-place lay the remains of Mrs, Clues. The legs and one thigh were 

 untouched. Except these parts, there were not the least remains of any skin, 

 muscles, or viscera. The bones of the skull, thorax, spine, and the upper ex- 

 tremities, were completely calcined, and covered with a whitish efflorescence. 

 The skull lay near the head of the bed, the legs toward the bottom, and the 

 spine in a curved direction, so that she appeared to have been burnt on her right 

 side, with her back next the grate. The right femur was separated from the 

 acetabulum of the ischium ; the left was also separated, and broken oft' about 3 

 inches below the great trochanter. The connection of the sacrum with the ossa 

 innominata, and the inferior vertebrae of the loins were destroyed. The inter- 

 vening ligaments kept the vertebrae of the loins, back, and neck together, and 

 the skull was still resting on the atlas. When the flames were extinguished, it 

 appeared that very little damage had been done to the furniture of the room ; 

 and that the side of the bed next the fire had suffered most. The bedstead was 

 superficially burnt, but the feather bed, sheets, blankets, &c, were not destroyed. 

 The curtain on the other side the bed was untouched, and a deal door, near the 

 bed, not in the least injured, Mr, W, was in the room about 2 hours after the 

 mischief was discovered. He observed, that the walls and every thing in the 

 room were coloured black: there was a very disagreeable vapour; but he did not 

 observe that any thing was much burnt, except Mrs, Clues; whose remains he 

 saw in the state above described. He took away one of the bones (the remains 

 of the sacrum) which he inclosed with this letter. The only way that he could 

 account for it is, by supposing that she again tumbled out of bed on Monday 

 morning, and that her shift was set fire to, either by the candle from the chair, 

 or a coal falling from the grate. That her solids and fluids were rendered inflam- 

 mable, by the immense quantity of spirituous liquors she had drunk; and that 

 when she was set fire to, she was probably soon reduced to ashes, for the room 

 suffered very little.* 



* There are many other instances on record, besides the above, of the combustibility of tlic human 

 body, in subjects advanced in years and addicted to tlie use of spirituous liquors. See a paper contain- 

 ing a collection of histories of this kind translated from tlie Journal dc Phytique in tlie 6'th vol. of th« 

 Phil. Magazine. 



