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the fingers and other parts of the bodies of those persons who touched it* 
Those parts, he observed shone the most which were soft to the touch, and 
seemed to be transparent in candle light; but where the flesh was thick and 
solid, or where a bone was near the outside, it did not shine. 
After this appearance, we find no account of any other similar to it, before 
that which was observed by Bartholin, and of which he gives a very pompous 
description in his ingenious treatise already quoted. This happened at Mont¬ 
pelier in 1041, when a poor old woman had bought a piece of flesh in the 
market, intending to make use of it the day following. But happening not 
to be able to sleep well that night, and her bed and pantry being in the same 
room, she observed so much light come from the flesh as to illuminate all 
the place where it hung. A part of this luminous flesh was carried as a 
curiosity to Henry Bourbon, duke of Conde, the governor of the place, who 
viewed it for several hours with the greatest astonishment. 
This light was observed to be whitish; and not to cover the whole surface 
of the flesh, but certain parts only, as if gems of unequal splendor had been 
scattered over it. This flesh was kept till it began to putrify, when the light 
vanished; which, as some religious people fancied, it did in the form of 
a cross. 
It is natural to expect, that the almost universal experimental philosopher 
Mr. Boyle should try the effect of his air-pump upon these luminous sub¬ 
stances. Accordingly we find that he did not fail to do it; when he pre¬ 
sently found that the light of rotten wood was extinguished in vacuo , and 
revived again on the admission of air, even after a long continuance in vacuo\ 
but the destruction of this light was not so complete immediately upon 
exhausting the receiver, as some little time afterwards. He could not per¬ 
ceive, however, that the light of rotten wood was increased in condensed air; 
but this he imagined might arise from his not being able to judge very well 
of the degree of light, through so thick and cloudy a glass-vessel as he then 
made use of, but found that the light of a shining fish, which was put into a 
condensing engine before the Royal Society, in 1668 , was rendered more 
vivid by that means. The principal of Mr. Boyle’s experiments were made 
in October l66^\ 
This philosopher attended to a great variety of circumstances relating to 
this curious phenomenon. Among other things he observed, that change of 
air was not necessary to the maintenance of this light; for it continued a long 
