Spontaneous human combustion
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Spontaneous human combustion (SHC) is the burning of the human body without an apparent external source of ignition. As it is usually thought of as an unproven natural phenomenon, there is much speculation and controversy regarding SHC. In most cases, a small shrunken skull, part of a leg(s) (with the clothing still on), or sometimes both are found in the remains of the person thought to have combusted.
Possible explanations
Many hypotheses have been put forth in attempts to explain how SHC might occur, based on current scientific understanding. These have generally failed to reach a satisfactory explanation of many of the recorded cases, when all the facts of the case are taken into account. As a result, some observers speculate that it is erroneous to speak of spontaneous combustion, and that there must have been a source of ignition. One such hypothesis is the "wick effect", in which the clothing of the victim soaks up melted human fat and acts like the wick of a candle. Another possibility is that the clothing is caused to burn by a discharge of static electricity. Some observers speculate that the likelihood that truly spontaneous human combustion actually takes place within the body is quite low. However, it should be obvious that a meaningful calculation of likelihood or probability of any such event could not be made without a correct model of the mechanism. Another mechanism that has been proposed is that every living body also contains gases- oxygen in the lungs, and methane in the intestines. Electrical discharges might ignite these gases if they became mixed. Finally, this strange phenomenon might be explained by the presence of external non-chemical energy sources, e.g. directed-energy weapons, perhaps in the microwave region, perhaps being tested on human subjects in a highly illegal and unethical way.
Whatever the nature of the phenomenon, a proper application of the scientific method requires that the physical implications of each hypothesis, in terms of predicted observables, must be compared against the carefully-analyzed details of each of the growing number of cases that have been recorded. Only in this way will the correct explanation eventually be discovered.
In fiction
The second and third chapters of Charles Brockden Brown's 1798 novel Wieland focuses on the emigration of Wieland, a German, to colonial America. Wieland practices a solitary form of Protestantism. As part of his religious practices he spends solitary hours in a temple constructed on his property. One night his family hears " a loud report, like the explosion of a mine." Rushing to the temple, they find Wieland lying with his clothing burned off and delirious. He dies soon after. While the term "spontaneous human combustion" was not yet created, Brown includes a footnote at the end of chapter 2 that suggest the phenomena and its existence in 18th century medical studies. The footnote reads:
- "A case, in its symptoms exactly parallel to this, is published in one of the Journals of Florence. See, likewise, similar cases reported by Messrs. Merille and Muraire, in the "Journal de Medicine," for February and May, 1783. The researches of Maffei and Fontana have thrown light upon this subject."
Examples of spontaneous combustion occur in three works by the nineteenth-century Russian author Nikolai Gogol. In the story "St. John's Eve" from Gogol's "Village Evenings Near Dikanka" (1831-32) the guilty character Petro the orphan spontaneously combusts when confronted with a vision of a child he had killed. In the story "Vii," a huntsman in a Cossack village combusts after an encounter with a witch: "And once, when they came to the stable, instead of him there was just a heap of ashes and an empty bucket lying there: he burned up, burned up of his own self." In the novel Dead Souls, the landowner Korobochka laments that her serf-blacksmith burned up: "Something inside him started burning somehow, he'd had too much to drink. A blue flame just came out of him, and he smoldered and smoldered all over, and turned black as charcoal, and he was such a really skillful blacksmith!."
In the first chapter of the novel Jacob Faithful (1834) by Frederick Marryat there is a vivid account of the hero's mother perishing "in that very peculiar and dreadful manner, which does sometimes, although rarely, occur, to those who indulge in an immoderate use of spirituous liquor. Cases of this kind do, indeed, present themselves but once in a century, but the occurrence of them is too well authenticated. She perished from what is termed spontaneous combustion, an inflammation of the gases generated from the spirits absorbed into the system."
In the novel Bleak House (1853) by Charles Dickens, the character Krook is killed by spontaneous combustion, "engendered in the corrupted humors of the vicious body itself". Jules Verne describes in his novel Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen (1878) that when a fictional African "King of Kazounde" tasted a punch set aflame, "An act of spontaneous combustion had just taken place. The king had taken fire like a petroleum bonbon. This fire developed little heat, but it devoured nonetheless." Verne has no doubt about SHC being the result of alcoholism : "In bodies so thoroughly alcoholized, combustion only produces a light and bluish flame, that water cannot extinguish. Even stifled outside, it would still continue to burn inwardly. When liquor has penetrated all the tissues, there exists no means of arresting the combustion."
In the video game Twisted Metal III, the character Damien Cole is described as having "mastered the fine art of spontaneous combustion", leading others to believe he has lighter fluid coursing through his veins.
In the novel Brimstone (2004) by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child spontaneous human combustion is discussed as a possible cause of death in some homicides.
In the Television Show Dead Like Me (2004) a reap of Daisy Adair was caused because of Spontaneous combustion. After she stated "I always thought it (Spontaneous Combustion) was a myth."
In the fictional Television Show Picket Fences (season 2, episode 2 "Duty Free Rome") the Mayor of Rome Wisconsin Bill Pugen dies, as the result of Spontaneous Combustion, while appealing his murder conviction.
In the novel Fire Pattern by Irish sci-fi writer Bob Shaw Spontaneous Human Combustion is result of alien invaders taking control of human bodies.
In the movie Repo Man, the incineration of a police officer by the mysterious object in the trunk of a car is cited as an example of spontaneous human combustion by a government agent ("It happens sometimes. People just explode.")
In the episode "Soft Light" of the television series The X-Files some murder victims are thought to have died via spontaneous human combustion.
In the animated television series South Park, the episode "Spontaneous Combustion" involves many people in the town suddenly bursting into flames. Stan Marsh's father finds out this is caused by intestinal gas.
One of the interviewers of the show Celebrity Deathmatch, Stacey Cornbread, died because of spontaneous human combustion.
In the film This Is Spinal Tap several of the band's drummers died of freak accidents, including one who spontaneously combusted on stage, leaving behind only a "globule". David St. Hubbins stated "Dozens of people spontaneously combust every year; it's just not very widely reported."
In the BBC TV series New Tricks, an episode called Big Topped featured an apparently impossible crime involving incineration inside a locked circus caravan; spontaneous human combustion is suggested as an explanation, although this is later rejected. At one point one of the characters replicates the QED experiment referred to above.
In the NCIS episode "Heart Break" (season 2), a Navy Commander appears to spontaneously combust in hospital. It is later found to be faked by the Commander's surgeon to cover up her mistake during surgery that caused the commander's death.
In Marvel Comics, the Golden Age Human Torch, his sidekick Toro, and the Fantastic Four's own Human Torch Johnny Storm have the ability to spontaneously combust at will.
