SCIENCE- G OSSIF. 



333 



SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION IN MAN. 



By J. L. F. Mitchell, M.A. 



NOT only to science and progress in it, do we 

 owe many comforts and luxuries of life, but 

 freedom from delusion and intellectual slavery. 

 Its progress has been slow but sure, and the 

 prospect of an endless continuance of its advance 

 through the coming centuries of time gives to the 

 mind a feeling of intense satisfaction. 



It is not very long since poor creatures were 

 bm'nt for witchcraft, and as recently as 1633 

 Galileo was imprisoned for saying the earth moved 

 round the sun — a statement which not the smallest 

 schoolboy would now dare to deny for very shame. 

 It is somewhat astonishing that so late as 1850 

 the medical faculty were not sufficiently enlight- 

 ened to be able to deny straight out the assertion 

 by some among their number that the Countess 

 Goerlitz died from spontaneous combustion. As 

 a fact she was murdered, but the deed was so 

 cunningly concealed that the person accused was 

 at the time acquitted. The facts of the case are 

 briefly these. The Countess, with her husband, 

 had a valet named Stauf . One day, upon enter- 

 ing her bedroom, she beheld him rifling one of 

 the drawers in which she kept her jewellery and 

 in the act of appropriating some. After being- 

 remonstrated with he menaced her ; a scuffle and 

 struggle ensued, in which he seized her by the 

 throat, and in a word strangled her. He then 

 fastened the door to prevent anybody entering. 

 This seems to have been before seven in the even- 

 ing. At about that hour her husband knocked at 

 the door. Eeceiving no answer, and imagining 

 her to be asleep, he retired. It would appear that 

 in the interval between this and nine o'clock Stauf 

 put the body of his mistress into a chair, set fire 

 to her dress, and burned her to hide the real cause 

 of death. This he effected so skilfully that none 

 of the bed-clothes were even scorched, and the 

 chair but little injured. He then effected his re- 

 treat, securing the door after him. About nine 

 o'clock her husband again returned, and on finding 

 the door still locked became somewhat alarmed 

 and forcibly broke it open. He found nothing but 

 a charred mass instead of his wife, whom he had 

 last seen in health and strength. Of course an 

 inquest was held. Curious to relate, the theory of 

 " spontaneous combustion " had so taken posses- 

 sion of the scientific minds of the time, and for so 

 long a period, that Stauf, who had been accused 

 of the murder, was acquitted. It was argued that 

 inasmuch as the things in the room, and even the 

 bed-clothes, were unsinged she could not have 

 been burnt to death in the ordinary way ; there- 

 fore, since she did die by burning, she did so by 

 spontaneous combustion. 



The end of this remarkable case was, that a 

 short time after the same man Stauf was arraigned 

 for poisoning his master. He was found guilty ; 

 and then it dawned upon the public mind that, 

 after all, he might have killed his mistress. The 

 body was accordingly exhumed, and it was then 

 found that, although the head and skitll were 

 burnt, the tongue protruded from the mouth in a 

 very unnatural way. After close examination the 

 authorities were convinced that she had been 

 previously strangled. Stauf was accordingly con- 

 victed, meeting with merited punishment. 



This case happened so recently as 1850, and 

 since that time the theory of " spontaneous com- 

 bustion " of animals has been proved, especially by 

 Liebig, to be as false as it is absurd. However, such 

 a thing as spontaneous combustion does occur, as 

 when hay, cotton, tow, flax, or hemp in large quan- 

 tities becomes heated by fermentation, when com- 

 bustion, which is evidently spontaneous, may ensue. 

 Liebig has clearly proved that it is impossible for 

 the human body to so ignite and burn. He says 

 " a fat dead body charged with alcohol may burn^ 

 but a living body, in which the blood is circu- 

 lating, cannot under any circumstances." 



■ It would be curious to relate, if it were not 

 tolerably well known, that cited cases of spon- 

 taneous combustion of human bodies have generally 

 been those of confirmed drunkards and drinkers 

 to excess of brandy or other form of alcohol. 



One well-known case is that of Madame Millet 

 in 1725. She was given to alcohol drinking, and 

 one morning the remains of her body were found 

 in the kitchen, about eighteen inches from the open 

 fire-place. She had burned to death, her head, 

 legs, and vertebrae only being left. Her husband, 

 Millet, was accused of murdering her, the ground 

 of accusation being that he had a pretty servant 

 girl with whom he had an intrigue. In this case 

 his innocence was proved ; but instead of account- 

 ing for the cause of death in what is now seen to 

 be a sensible manner, the verdict was that the wife 

 had died from " spontaneous combustion." This 

 instance is sufficient to show the cause of the com- 

 bustion of the human body in forty-five to forty- 

 eight cases that have occurred under similar cir- 

 cumstances. From the fact that Madame Millet was 

 but eighteen inches from the open fire-ialace and in 

 a state of intoxication we may conclude that her 

 garments had caught alight, and being naturally 

 bereft of all control and all presence of mind, she 

 had simply perished in the flames. 



Another very absurd case related is that of a 

 tailor, Lariviere, and his wife, who, both intoxicated, 

 were left at 7 p.m., and found dead the next 



