•produced by the Use of Spirituous Liquors. 165 
ed, and observed that the walls and every tiling in it were 
blackened ; that it was filled with a very disagreeable 
vapour ; but that nothing except the body exhibited any 
strong traces of fire.” 
This instance has great similarity to that related by 
Vicq-d ? Azyr in the Encyclopedic Methodique, under the 
head,, Pathologic Anatomy of Man. A woman, about 
fifty years of age, who indulged to excess in spirituous 
liquors, and got drunk every day before she went to bed, 
was found entirely burnt, and reduced to ashes. Some 
of the osseous parts only were left, but the furniture of 
the apartment had suffered very little damage. Vicq 
d’Azyr, instead of disbelieving this phenomenon, adds, 
that there have been other instances of the like kind. 
We find also a circumstance of this kind in a work 
entitled, Acta Medica et philosophica Hafniensia ,* and 
in the work of Henry Bohanser, entitled, Le nouveau 
phosphore enfamme. A woman at Paris, who had been 
accustomed, for three years, to drink spirit of wine to 
such a degree that she used no other liquor, was one day 
found entirely reduced to ashes, except the skull and ex- 
tremities of the fingers. 
The Transactions of the Royal Society of London 
present also an instance of human combustion no less 
extraordinary : It was mentioned at the time it happened 
in all the journals ; it was then attested by a great num- 
ber of eye-witnesses, and became the subject of many 
learned discussions. Three accounts of this event, by 
different authors, all nearly coincide. The fact is re- 
lated as follows : — “ Grace Pitt, the wife of a fishmon- 
ger of the parish of St. Clement, Ipswich, aged about 
sixty, had contracted a habit, which she continued for 
several years, of coming down every night from her bed- 
room, half dressed, to smoke a pipe. On the night of 
the 9th of April, 1744, she got up from bed as usual. 
