On spontaneous combustion / by Alexander Ogston.

  • Ogston, Alexander, 1844-1929.
Date:
[1870]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On spontaneous combustion / by Alexander Ogston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/18 (page 15)
    had invaded the face, neck, and shoulders, which were green, the veins there being filled with blood, and their tracks marked by- green branching lines. Pectoral muscles and neck distended with gas; thighs also emphysematous, the gas existing chiefly in the muscles, deep connective tissue, and round the vessels. Lower part of the abdomen greenish.” The further details of the autopsy show excessive decomposition; and the gas_, developed everywhere in the tissues^ burnt when punc¬ tures were made (‘'Med. Leg./ vol. 2, p. 296). This case I have cited for the sake of completeness^ but believe it to be nothing more than early decomposition_, hastened at the back parts of the body by the warm dung. If space permitted I might adduce analogous cases from simple decomposition. On reviewing the two sets of cases, and the inferences fairly deducible from each, it becomes evident, as before mentioned, that while the first class, or untrue cases, has given rise to the theory of syoontaneous ig nit ability, the second class of narratives countenances no such doctrine, and speahs merely for increased combustibility on accidental ignition. The possibility of, or mode of origin of, spon¬ taneous ignition, need not be discussed here, since there is not, in any one of the trustworthy cases, the slightest call upon us to assume its existence, and it would be fruitless to discuss a pheno¬ menon of the occurrence of which w'e have no evidence. But that increased combustibility exists cannot be denied, thougli at first sia:ht it is not so clear to what it owes its existence. The question has given rise, as has been already seen, to numerous hypo¬ theses, all of which, with one exception, are manifestly untenable, and it is owing to the wildness and illogicality of these hypotheses and deductions surrounding the subject, that the whole question has come to be treated as a half-forgotten fable. Most writers on spontaneous combustion have remarked that those who have fallen victims to it have been usually old women, and generally, though not invariably, fat people; and Dupuytren was led, in the ^ Lancette Prancaise^ for Pebruary 1830, No. 97, to say in regard to this subject, that he had, in frequently burning portions of bodies, found no difficulty in consuming them, especially the fat parts. I do not know,” he adds, a single example of spontaneous combustion in a lean and dry individual: all were, without exception, extremely fat.” After speaking of the way the victims among his countrymen become stupefied by drink and the carbonic fumes from their warming pans, he continues, When the fire gains the clothes it burns the skin, which cracks and allows the fat to run out; part of this flows down on the floor, the rest serves to support the combustion, and with free access of air everything is burnt. This is how alcohol is the occasional cause of the combus¬ tion ; it is in stupefying and rendering the patient insensible that it