combustibility of the tissues. The preternatural combustibility is due to the formation within the body of some substance or substances capable of burning when once ignited. Dupuytren has advanced the explanation that increased combustibility of the human body is due to excess of fat. Certainly a review of the cases demonstrates that the charring was always most extensive in the skin and subcutaneous adipose tissue, and in other places where fat is abundant, and least marked in organs and regions with less fat. The fatty degeneration of the various organs and structures would form a body of oleaginous matter which, when once ignited, would tend to burn in situ rather than to flow out, and so would account for the fact, which is well known in these cases, of the greater destruction of the corpse than of objects in the vicinity. According to this view, the influence of alcoholic indulgence is to increase the deposition of fat in the body generally, and to act as a stupefying agent, so rendering the occurrence of an accident with fire more liable.

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Hava has recently published the results of some experiments on the subject, from which he draws the novel conclusion that preternatural combustibility in man is possibly the result of gradual and progressive accumulation for years of carbonic oxide in the tissues; contact with a flame or fire being, of course, indispensable for the starting of the combustion. According to his views, the gradual accumulation of carbonic oxide in the tissues expels the oxygen, so that oxidation is slowed, the formation of fat is favoured, and the reason why the victims complain of feeling cold in all seasons is explained. He believes that the victims of preternatural combustibility are those who inhabit badly ventilated rooms heated by stoves, and who employ charcoal foot-warmers, and so are exposed for years to atmospheres containing minute quantities of carbonic oxide. He asserts that the luminous flame which has been seen from bodies undergoing this peculiar form of combustion is the flame of burning carbonic oxide. His explanation of soNew Orleans Med. and Surg. Jour., 1894.

called spontaneous combustion is that the victim, in an unconscious state or when dead, comes in contact with a flame or fire, and that the carbonic oxide begins to burn, producing an intense heat, which carbonises a small patch of skin, subcutaneous and muscular tissues. The carbonised tissue, being very light and porous, absorbs the first drop of melted fat, which then burns with a characteristic smoke. From this moment, and as long as there is fat to be melted by the intense heat of combustion, the body continues to burn of its own accord. In confirmation of these views Hava states that he kept rabbits and roosters for months in an atmosphere impregnated from time to time each day or continuously with some carbonic oxide, and that in this way their tissues acquired increased combustibility. The shortest time in which he succeeded in accumulating in a rabbit's tissues sufficient carbonic oxide to produce increased combustibility was 169 days of continued administration. The skin, subcutaneous and muscular tissues were readily combustible, burning with a bluish flame, and leaving very porous carbonised masses retaining the shape of the parts that had been consumed. A rooster, whose flesh was rendered combustible by inhalation of an atmosphere containing some carbonic oxide, was kept in the contaminated atmosphere for over eight months.

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Booth records a case of so-called 'spontaneous combustion,' which may be taken as a fairly typical case of preternatural combustibility of the human body. The victim, a man aged sixty-five, was a pensioner of notoriously intemperate habits. He was seen at nine o'clock one night to enter a stable, in the loft of which he was in the habit of sleeping, and was heard to ascend a ladder leading to a loft above; afterwards the skylight of the loft was seen lighted, and later still the light appeared to be put out. Between 8 and 9 o'clock next morning smoke was observed issuing from a hole in the roof of the loft, and when the stable below was entered, the remains of the old soldier were seen through a hole in the loft floor, perched on 1 Brit. Med. Jour., 1888.

the joists above, and leaning against the wall. On examining the remains, Booth found that they were completely charred, and kept only by one of the joists and the burnt remnant of the flooring under him from falling through into the stable beneath. Notwithstanding the presence of abundant combustible material around, such as hay and wood, the main effects of combustion were limited to the corpse, and only a small piece of the adjacent flooring and the woodwork immediately above the man's head had suffered. A small piece of the flooring immediately round him had fallen through into the stable below, leaving the hole through which he had been first seen. The body was almost a cinder, yet retained the form of the face and figure so well, that those who had known him in life could readily recognise him. Both hands and the right foot had been burnt off, and the charred and calcined ends of the right radius and ulna, the left humerus, and the right tibia and fibula were exposed to view. The hair and scalp were burnt off the forehead, exposing the bare and calcined skull. The tissues of the face were represented by a greasy cinder retaining the cast of the features, and the incinerated moustache still gave the wonted military expression to the old soldier. The soft tissues were almost entirely consumed, more especially on the posterior surface of the body, where the clothes were destroyed, and the posterior surfaces of the femora, innominate bones, and ribs exposed to view. This was probably due to some slates having fallen from the roof on the body, as otherwise a more perfect cinder might have been found. When an attempt was made to remove the body it collapsed en masse. From the comfortably recumbent attitude of the body it was evident that there had been no death struggle, and that, obfuscated by the whisky within and the smoke without, the man had expired without suffering, the body burning away quietly all the time,

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LIGHTNING-HEAT-COLD-STARVATION

CHAPTER XXX

Injuries and death from lightning and electricity-Appearances of death from lightning-Death from heat-Death from cold-Death from starvation.

INJURIES AND DEATH FROM LIGHTNING AND ELECTRICITY

INJURIES and death caused by lightning may be of medico-legal importance when a medical man is called upon to determine the cause of death in a case where a body has been discovered in a remote or solitary situation, with marks of severe external injury on it, or perhaps partly or entirely stripped of its clothes -conditions which might very probably lead, at first, to a suspicion of foul play.

During a thunderstorm, the electric condition or polarity of the thunder-cloud is usually positive, while that of the earth immediately beneath it is negative. When these polarities become intensified by mutual induction, an electrical discharge takes place through the intervening air, or through any other medium, such as the human body, that happens to be present in the path of the discharge. Persons taking shelter, during a thunderstorm, under trees, and especially under a solitary tree, and persons in the open country, are much more liable to be struck by lightning than those within doors.

The traumatic influence of a lightning flash is not by any means limited to its apparent path. It is true that in the track of its apparent path its power of inflicting damages is at a

maximum, but on either side of this track is an area within which the traumatic effects of the current may be experienced. Hence proximity to a tree that is struck during a thunderstorm is dangerous.

Death from lightning may occur without any traces of injury, but, as a rule, burns are inflicted on the body, and frequently traumatic effects are produced which may closely resemble those resulting from the employment of great mechanical violence. Contusions, lacerations, fractures of bones, and tearing of the clothes and boots, may all result from being struck by lightning; so that persons, unacquainted with the possibility of such effects of lightning, might readily be suspicious that the deceased had met with foul play, and had probably been murdered. As an instance of the extreme violence that may be wrought, especially on the clothes, by lightning, Wilks relates the case of a man who was struck while standing under a tree, which was also struck. When found, shortly afterwards, he was lying on his back about six feet away from the tree, and although completely clothed before being struck, he was stark naked, his clothes being scattered in a line for several yards along the field, whilst his boots were at the foot of the tree. The man did not lose consciousness, and stated that he felt himself violently struck across the chest and shoulders, hurled through the air, and dashed upon the ground. He was more or less burnt all over; the right os calcis was fractured, and there was a compound comminuted fracture of the right tibia and fibula. He showed no signs of shock, and eventually recovered. Knaggs 2 relates the case of a man who was struck by an upward discharge while at work in a field; the discharge passed through his body, and almost completely tore off the right ear, while the hair on the same side of the head appeared to have been shaved off for a space of about six inches by two inches. A large hæmatoma was found over the right parietal region, and beneath there was an extensive fracture of the skull, extending from the left Med. Times and Gaz., 1879. 2 Brit. Med. Jour., 1894.

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