Madill, A. (2009) Spontaneous combustion.

Madill, A. (2009). Spontaneous combustion. Sage Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience (pp.890-891). C.D.Bryant and D.L. Peck, Eds. Spontaneous combustion Spontaneous combustion occurs when an object self-ignites. The cause may be chemical, as when lithium oxidises explosively in water, or biological, as when a haystack catches fire due to heat generated from bacterial fermentation. There is no scientific evidence that the human body can self-ignite. However, spontaneous human combustion (SHC) as an alleged cause of death has a long and controversial history. If true, the mechanism of ignition is mysterious and challenges what we know about the human body. Cases accredited to SHC tend to have features in common. Most victims are female. Many are overweight, alcoholic, and have a mobility dysfunction or disabling illness. Usually there are no witnesses to the combustion and no calls for help are heard. The torso is badly burned while extremities, such as the lower legs, are left intact. The immediate environment suffers little damage although a foul-smelling yellow oil may surround the body. Often there is a significant time lapse between the victim being last seen alive and the finding of their charred remains. Apart from possible accounts in the Bible, the first description of SHC in Western culture has been attributed to Danish anatomist Thomas Bartholin (16161680), founder of the journal Acta Medica et Philosophica Hafniensia, who described the case of a Parisian woman incinerated in her sleep while the straw mat on which she lay sustained little damage. In 1763 Jonas Dupont collected such stories in De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis raising the public profile of the phenomenon. Public interest in SHC has been utilised by writers as a dramatic literary device. Possibly the earliest example can be found in Charles Brockton Brown’s (1771-1810) novel Wieland published in 1798. The most famous is the death of Mr 1 Madill, A. (2009). Spontaneous combustion. Sage Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience (pp.890-891). C.D.Bryant and D.L. Peck, Eds. Krook in Charles Dicken’s (1812-1870) Bleak House first published 1852-3 and forming part of the debate about SHC which raged in 19th century England. SHC has been the subject of sustained interest in more recent times since the death of Mary Reeser in Florida, 1951, at the age of 67 popularly accredited to SHC. Seventeenth and eighteenth century explanations for SHC favoured alcoholism as the cause, believing (erroneously) that ‘alcohol-saturated’ flesh was readily combustible. The more speculative contemporary explanations include kundalini fire, geomagnetism, ball lightning, and force-fields from high-tension wires. Quasibiochemical accounts such as ‘pyroton’ particles initiating a nuclear chain reaction within the human body, ignition of cellular hydrogen and oxygen, and mechanisms associated with phosphorous metabolism have been dismissed by scientists as, at best, misinformed. Two explanations based on known scientific principles have met with less general scepticism and account for at least some of the phenomena associated with SHC: the static flash fire hypothesis and the candle or wick effect. The human body can generate static electricity and Professor Robin Beach, formerly of the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, suggested that some people can generate up to 30,000 volts at a time which may singe or burn clothing on discharge. Moreover, there is some evidence that static discharge from people may ignite fires in some highly flammable environmental conditions. However, Beach’s research demonstrated that the human body can hold an extremely high charge of static electricity without harm so is unlikely to cause a person to self-ignite in the way implied by SHC. Possibly the strongest candidate explanation is that clothes saturated with melted human fat from an already burning body functions like the wick of a candle maintaining a slow but steady burn that cremates the fattier parts over several hours. 2 Madill, A. (2009). Spontaneous combustion. Sage Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience (pp.890-891). C.D.Bryant and D.L. Peck, Eds. Dr John deHaan, a Fellow of the American Board of Criminalistics, demonstrated the wick effect on the BBC1 programme QED in 1998. The body of a dead pig – an animal with a similar fat content to the human body – was wrapped in a blanket and set alight using a small amount of petrol. The experiment showed that the pig’s bones could be incinerated within about 5 hours. The wick effect requires external ignition, an ineffectual and possibly slow reaction on the part of the victim, and time and poor ventilation to allow the smouldering flame to incinerate parts of the body. However, in cases of alleged SHC these conditions are often met. Cigarettes, cigars, or a pipe are sometimes found near the body and an accelerant reaction from alcohol spillage or from highly flammable clothing is possible. Failure to extinguish the original flame can be accounted for by alcohol- or drug-induced stupor, old age and disability, or death prior to incineration as when the victim had suffered a heart attack or when fire may have been used to cover a murder. Moreover, victims are often socially isolated and found in poorly ventilated rooms. The ignition point of human fat is relatively low, and a human body can be incinerated at temperatures much lower than used in crematoria given time, poor ventilation, and porous bones (as in osteoporosis) with a smouldering fire unlikely to spread to surrounding areas or to draw immediate attention. The wick effect also explains why it is usually the fattier parts of the body that sustain the greatest damage. Alleged cases of SHC are rare today. Forensic science is better able to explain immolations and it is likely that with additional, accurate information many cases of alleged SHC would be explainable as tragic accidents or murders. To be taken seriously, unusual claims require unusually strong supporting evidence and the onus is on the exponents of SHC to prove the phenomenon beyond reasonable doubt. Until 3 Madill, A. (2009). Spontaneous combustion. Sage Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience (pp.890-891). C.D.Bryant and D.L. Peck, Eds. then it seems prudent to follow the dictum of Occam’s razor which counsels acceptance of the simplest, most parsimonious explanation. Moreover, it is known that stories lending themselves to a dramatic interpretation, such as an unusual and gruesome death, are often developed in this direction in the telling. Hence, until a mechanism is proven for human self-ignition, it seems reasonable to assume that an external source is responsible. Anna Madill, University of Leeds, UK See also: Accidental Death; Cremation; Forensic Science; Homicide; Literary Depictions of Death. Further Reading Christensen, A. M. (2002). Experiments in the combustibility of the human body. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 47, 466-470. Croft, L. B. (1989). Spontaneous human combustion in literature: Some examples of the literary use of popular mythology. Journal of the College Language Association, 32, 335-347. 4