The Shasta courier., 1862-12-06
SH ASIA COURIER.
Spontaneous Combustion.

ed by spontaneous combustion are 50 puner-
Gus that the most skeptiea are sometimes
tempted to believe III tie possibility of the
phenomena. The earliest case recorded, is
that of a woman in Copenhagen, in 1922.
who, for three years. had used splrituous
liquors to excess. Having sat down one
evening in Il straw chair to sleep, she was
consumed in the night time. so that next NOR
ming no part of h was found but the skull
and the extreme joints of ner fingers all the
rest of her BODY being reduced to ashes.
The transactions Of the Royal Society Of
ot London, likewise furnish Instance of
human combustion, equally extraordinary.
in the case Of Grace Pitt. an intempe:ate
person, who was fund on the night of the
9th of April 1754 partially consumed; the
limbs and a portion of the body eing, in
measure. iacinerated, - resembling heaps Of
seal covered with white ashes The wo-
mans daughter on beholding this spectacle,
Fan in great haste, aad poured over her
mothers DIV some water IN order to extIn-
guish the fire while the fetld odor and
smoke which exha ed from the body almost
suffDcated some of the neighbors who had
hastened to her assistance.
The g had been no fire near the CRATE and
near the cunsus,.c body paper screen and
the clothes Of :. child were found uniuiured.
Eighty years ago, Merile, Il surgeon at
Caen, Published the following account:
Being requested by the kings officers
to draw up report Of the state in which |
found Mademoiselle Thnars VIII" is said to
have been burned, made the foiiowins OBJ
servatiuns The body lay with the crown Of
the head resting against one OF the and'-
rons. at distance OF eighteen inches from
the fire: the remainder Of the body was
- clT No
nil being nothing but a mass of ashes. Even
the most solid bones had lost their form and
sousistencc. The right fo,t was found en-
tire. and scorchcd at the upper Junction the
left was more burned. The day was cold,
hut there was nothing in the CRATE, except
ing two or three bits Of wood about an inc.
in diameter, burat in the middle. None oi
the furniture in the apartment was daniaS-
ed The chair in which Ma1emn,seiic IAuars
had been sitting was found at the distance OF
II foot from her, ana absolutely untouched.-
must here observe that this lady was ex-
ceedinelv coroulent, that she was above SIX
Nv wears of aye. and much addicted to spirit
ituous liquors that on the day of her death
she had drank three bottles OF wine, and about
a bottle of brandy and that the consump-
ton of the body took place IN less than seven
hours, though, according to appearance, moth
ing round the body was burned but the cloth
es.h
A few years before the death Of Made
moselle Thuars, woman named Mary Jaui-
fret. wife of shoemaker at AK. IN Prov
ence, was reported to have died from spon-
taneous combustion, and full account of
,he case, written by the surgeon Murian,
was put in the Journal de Medicine.
LIE Cat, in his pamphlet on Spontar eous
instances, among the most remarkable of
which are the following:-
IN. Boineau, cure of Pierquier, near Dol,
wrote to me the following lesler, dated I eh-
ruary %, l749 Allow me to communicate
to You a fact which took place here a fort
night ago Madam de Boseon, eighty years
Of age, exceedingly meagre, who had drunk
nothing but spirits for several years. was sit
;inr in her elbow chair before the fire. while
her waiting maid went out of the room for
y few moments. On her return, seeing her
mistress on FIRE, she immediately gave the
alarm. and some people having come to her
assistance, one of them endeayored 10 extn-
cuish the blaze with his hands, but in vain
the flames having the appearance of brandy
or oil on fire. Water was brought down and
thrown on the lady in abundance, yet the
fire appeared more violent, and was not ex-
tinauished until she was consumed. Her
skeleton, exceedingly black, remained en-
tire in the chair, which was only a little
scorched one leg only, and the !wo hands
detached themselves from the rest of the
bones. The lady was in the same place in
which she sat every day, and there was no
extraordinary fire in the CRATE. What makes
me suppose that the use Of spirits might
have produced this effect is, that | have been
assured that al the gates of Oman an accident
of the like kind happened to another woman
under similar circumstances.
The Countess Cornelia Bandi, native Of
Cessena. Italy, had reached tn, age of sixty
two without any kind of infrmity. One
night her attendants observed that, contrary
to her usual habits, she appeared rather
heavy and slee Immediately after supper /;
but She nevertheless sat up three hours talk
ing with her maid, and then said her pray
ers and went to bed The next morning her
maid. alarmed at not being summoned by
the Countess. long after the ordinary hour
entered her chauster and called to her
Hearing no answer, and fearing something
had happened she opened the shutters, and
was horror stricken az seeing the body Of
her mistress IN the state that we are about TO
describe Not more than yard from the
bed was n heap of ashes in which lay two
legs-entire from the foot to the knee-and
two arms. The head was between the legs.
All the rest of the body had been converted
into ashes which when touched left 4 greasy
and fe,id humidity on the fingers. On the
floor was n small lamp without oil. ON the
table stood twa candlestieks, the Candles Of
which had lest all their tallow, but the wcks
remained unburnt The bed was uniniured.
the clothes lying as they usually do when a
person has risen; ali the hanginss of the bed
were covered with gravish SCOT, which had
even penetrated into some drawers and Sai,eti
the linen they contained. This SCOT had al.
SO todnd its way into an adjoining kitchen,
and covered the walls, furniture and uten-
sis. The bread in the safe was also cover
ed with it. and when offered 10 several dogs
they would not touch 1t. In the chamber
over the Countess room the lower part Of the
windows were soiled with a fatty. yellow fin-
i'd. The whole atmosphere around was i'm
pregnated with an indescribable sickening
smell, and the floor of the chamber was coat
ed with a thick, clammy. and extremely ad-
hesive moisture. The Countess had a2par-
entity been consumed by an internal lire
Or. Bianchi. a physician Of the town. who
has published pamphlet on the case, thinks
that the fire hcgaa in the lungs. and was
developed during sleep; that the Countess