Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1885 — Spontaneous Combustion. [ARTICLE]

Spontaneous Combustion.

It is claimed that spontaneous combustion of the human body has taken place in more than one instance, and Charles Dickens is not the only novelist who has introduced it into a story. It has also been referred to in medical wdrks. Levoux’s “Journal de Mcdicin” gives an account of a fat woman 28 years of age, who was found on fire in her chamber, where nothing else was burning. The neighbors heard a noise something like frying, and when the body was removed it left a layer of black grease. The doctor conceived that the combustion began in the internal parts, and the clothes were bqrned secondarily.