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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (20324)	11/18/2005 11:40:07 PM
From: average joe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

Burning questions surround fiery deaths DIANE MACLEAN "Among the wonderful phenomena which chemistry presents to us, there are few more remarkable than those of spontaneous human combustion, in which bodies both animate and inanimate emit flames and are sometimes entirely consumed by internal fire." Letters on Natural Magic addressed to Sir Walter Scott -- Sir David Brewster, 1832 IF YOU'RE hooked on the new BBC adaptation of Bleak House, then prepare yourself for tonight's explosive episode. In it Krook, the hard-drinking landlord, dies after spontaneously combusting. When Charles Dickens wrote his novel in 1852 it caused a sensation. Never before had the idea of spontaneous human combustion (SHC) entered the mainstream. George Henry Lewes, a philosopher and critic, harangued Dickens for perpetuating a ridiculous superstition. Dickens fought back arguing that he had researched the subject and knew of about 30 such deaths. Fast fact Scotland's first SHC case was in 1829 when an Edinburgh man burst into flames whilst talking to his brother. Despite repeated dowsing with water the flames were only extinguished when both brothers were totally submerged. The second case allegedly happened in Falkirk when a Gladys Cochrane was found burnt to a cinder in her armchair. The cushion and chair were untouched although all that was left of poor Gladys was ash. SHC - where a person is burnt to ashes with no obvious trigger - has been, and still is, a contentious phenomenon. In the past 300 years only 200 cases have been documented and whilst science strives to "prove" a rational explanation, there are many who remain convinced that there is more to it than meets the eye. When Sir David Brewster listed it in his 1832 book Letters on Natural Magic addressed to Sir Walter Scott, he described the death of Grace Pett, the pipe-smoking wife of an Ipswich fisherman who spontaneously combusted in 1744. Brewster wrote that Pett retired to bed having "drunk plentiful gin". When her daughter opened the kitchen door the next morning, she walked in to a hellish scene: "The trunk of the unfortunate woman was almost burned to ashes and appeared like a heap of charcoal," wrote Brewster. "There was no fire in the grate and a paper screen on the other side were untouched." Pett's death epitomises the circumstances of SHC. It often involves drink and no obvious source for the fire, with nearby combustible items left untouched. Furthermore, like all SHC cases, the body had been incinerated and body fat was present around the room. From earliest times science has reported on these cases. But whilst today it tries to explain, older reports sometimes hint at unease. This drawing was used to illustrate Dr Booth's account of the death of an old Aberdeenshire soldier, as reported in the British Medical Journal of 1888. On 19 February 1888, a Dr Booth was called out to a hay loft in Aberdeenshire to examine the remains of a 65-year-old man, someone, he notes, "of notoriously intemperate habits." He subsequently wrote up the case in the British Medical Journal. "I found the charred remains of the man reclining against the stone wall of a hay loft. The body was almost a cinder. " Booth noted that loose hay surrounding the body was untouched and when the body was lifted, it disintegrated. He offered no explanation. Recently, science has "explained" SHC with the so-called wick effect. Experiments suggest that if a body is set alight and wrapped up, then body fat, burning slowly, can achieve the same effects as SHC. Not everyone is convinced. Gordon Rutter writes for the Fortean Times and is open-minded about the subject. "With SHC it's very much 'you pays your money and you takes your choice'," says Rutter. "I have read reports from firemen who have said it's not like a normal fire. By all accounts it is rare, so it is difficult to study." So just what could causes spontaneous human combustion? Well, as Rutter says, you can take your choice from a number of diverse possibilities: • Alcohol and cigarettes – blaming the demon drink was very popular in Victorian times when they were never quick to miss an opportunity to moralise. However, whilst a number of cases have involved heavy drinkers, it is not always the case. • The wick effect – by recreating the cirumstances with a pig wrapped in a blanket, scientists reckon they have found the solution. Detractors point out that even after a number of hours in an oven at 600° Fahrenheit, bodies in crematoriums are still not burnt to ashes. • Faulty digestive system – a bad diet could cost you more than low energy levels and raised cholesterol. It has been posited that a build up of gases in the digestive tract could lead to unstable chemicals spontaneously combusting. This has been offered to explain cases where the individual has been seen to burn from the inside out. • Ball lightning – weird electrical fields, ball lightning, et al have been pulled out, dusted down and put forward as theories. Not many takers though… • An act of God – or aliens, or any other weird thing that you'd like to imagine. Because let's face it, if you've decided SHC is more than a tragic accident, then you're probably going to want to seek the explanation from as strange a source as possible. heritage.scotsman.com