334 



SCIENCE- GOSSIP. 



morning at eleven. This, again, was decided to be 

 a case of spontaneous combustion, the fact being 

 forgotten that they had been left in the room with 

 a burning charcoal fire, which had at once added 

 to their stupefaction and set them alight, leaving- 

 them a chai-red mass. 



Another famous case is that of Signora Cornelia 

 Zangair Baudi, aged seventy -two, living near 

 Cesena, in Romagna, March 1731. She retired to 

 rest, and in the morning was found reduced to 

 ashes, her face, legs, skull, and three fingers 

 remaining, but her stockings and shoes not in the 

 least burnt. It was generally believed that it was 

 a case of " internal combustion." The lady rose 

 from her bed to refreshen herself, and while 

 she went to the window to open it the combustion 

 had flung her down, consuming her body without 

 any flame, which could set fire to the flooring or 

 the furniture. Rev. Signer Bianchiui, the pre- 

 bendary of Verona, accounted for this by the fact 

 that she used a bath of camphorated spirits of 

 wine, that her frame had become impregnated 

 with the inflammable spirit, and that therefore the 

 cause of death was '• spontaneous combustion." It 

 was not stated that the room was heated by an 

 open fire-place, by which she no doubt was burnt. 

 It. is a curious fact that such cases are rare in 

 Germany and Russia, where the rooms are heated 

 by closed stoves and not by open grates. 



It is again very remarkable to fiiid how 

 tenaciously this theory had clung to the minds of 

 even the most scientific when we read of a case 

 happening so late as 181:7 as "unexplained." A 

 man, a confirmed spirit drinker, went to bed with 

 a hot brick at his feet, and was found in the 

 morning dead and bm-nt to a cinder. So the 

 " Gazette Medicale," September -1, 1847, relates. 

 Assuming that there is no evidence forthcoming 

 to account rationality for such an effect, one would 

 think the comment upon it would rather have 

 been : '• To be explained by some natural cause 

 not forthcoming or concealed by those who re- 

 ported the occurrence." Again, as late as 1853, 

 when Dickens's "Bleak House " was published, the 

 author fully believed in, if he were not fully con- 

 vinced of — assuming, as we must, that his preface 

 was an exponent of his sentiments — the possibility 

 of the spontaneous combustion of the human body. 

 Owing to the quantity of water in the human 

 body, Liebig shows that it is plainly impossible. 

 A sponge saturated with alcohol will not burn till 

 all the spirit has been consumed, and even then 

 not at all until the whole of the watery moisture 

 it contains has been evaporated. So of the human 

 body. It is clear that even if all the tissues were 

 saturated with spirit, and this caught alight, it 

 might burn, but it would go out long before it was 

 possible to consume any appreciable amount of the 

 flesh. The fact of spontaneous combustion being 

 possible and manifesting itself in mineral and 

 organic substances, combined with the extremely 



volatile nature of the vapour of spirit, has no doubt 

 led to the false conception. 



It is known that charcoal impregnated with oil 

 is liable to acquire spontaneously a temperature 

 leading to unexpected combustion ; phosphorus 

 also, when dry; and the well-known mixture of 

 iron filings an d sulphur, moistened with a little 

 water, if buried a short distance below the surface 

 of the ground, " will of itself, after several hours, 

 burst forth in a state of ignition," resembling a 

 miniature volcano ; but it has never yet been 

 found that the human body will burn while the 

 blood is in circulation. The heat applied must 

 be so intense as first to evaporate all the 

 water, when circulation ^\ill stop ; and then 

 the body may be burnt, but not before. In 

 the case of the Countess Cornelia Baudi, there- 

 fore, since it is admitted that she got out of bed to 

 open the window for air, and that there were 

 candles on the table, it is most certain that her 

 dress must have caught fire and have been the direct 

 cause of death. If Charles Dickens was forced to 

 believe in " spontaneous combustion," so called, we 

 can easily account for Captain Marryat doing so 

 in 1831. He describes the death of the mother of 

 Jacob Faithful thus: "She perished in that very 

 peculiar and dreadful manner which does some- 

 times, though rarely, occur to those who indulge 

 in an immoderate use of spirituous liquors — from 

 spontaneous combustion, an inflammation of the 

 gases generated from the spirits absorbed into the 

 system." 



The close relation between spirit drinking and 

 death by burning is so obvious as to furnish a 

 simple suggestion for such a death ; but Liebig's 

 statement is ample refutation of this popular error. 



Regent Square, London. 



A Daein'G Bat. — Mr. B. Harvey-Jellie records 

 in the '-Entomologist " that, in the full light of a 

 lantern, a bat settled by the side of a iJatch of 

 " sugar " and ate one of the moths that had been 

 attracted by the bait. 



Algol Stars. — Professor E. C. Pickering gives 

 particulars in the •' Harvard College Observatory 

 Circular" of some adtlitioual observations of 

 recently discovered variables that have been ob- 

 tained from examination of the photographs taken 

 with the 8-inch Draper telescope. This gentleman 

 was recently presented with a silver cup, by the 

 staff of the Harvard College Observatory, on the 

 comxjletion of twenty-five years' work as Director 

 of the Observatory. 



Geological Society Awards. — The medals 

 and funds of the Geological Society of London are 

 awarded as follows :- The Wollaston medal to 

 ill-. Friedrich Schmidt, of St. Petersburg ; the 

 Lyell medals to Mr. R. Lydekker and Professor 

 Anton Fritsch, of Prague ; the Murcliison medal 

 to Mr. F. W. Harmed- ; the Wollaston fund to 

 I\Ir. L. J. Spencer ; the Murchison fund to Mr. T. 

 H. Holland ; the Lyell fund to Dr. Wheelton Hind ; 

 and the Barlow-Jameson fund to Mr. W. M. 

 Hutchings. 



