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SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION . Two Lettees to Charles Dickers . No . II . Mt deab Dickens , —In my former letter I explained Low all the decisive authorities in Science are emphatically against the notion of Spontaneous Combustion ; andldeclared the evidenceupon which the notion was founded to be evidence not trustworthy , even were it testifying to things strange though credible , far less so , therefore , when testifying to things physically impossible . " Reported cases" must always be received with cautious criticism , the difficulty of reporting truly being so very great . In the
cases of supposed Spontaneous Combustion I have read , the majority seem to me utterly untrustworthy , and those few that seem more circumstantial and reliable , I believe to have one of two sources of error—they either omit to state certain facts which would alter the whole aspect of the case , or they state facts which were not . This may appear arbitrary j but in the case I formerly put to you , ( of a lamp-post suddenly converted , into an elm-tree by a flash of lightning ) what is your rejection of respectable testimony but an arbitrary decision P You do not believe in clairvoyante 8 who detect robberies , and give precise information of the whereabouts of
Sir John Franklin 5 yet there is " evidence" for these marvels . You do not believe in the Eappites , or other communications with Ghosts ; mainly because you do not believe in ghosts . First prove that ghosts exist , and then one may listen to a gentleman who pretends to hold conversations with them . In like manner I say that the "inflammable gases " so prodigally thrown into the subject by the defenders of Spontaneous Combustion , are fictions of the imagination , the ghosts of credulous ignorance ; and against the evidence of reported cases I will set the evidence of Science , and prove , 1 st , that the human body is not such as to render Spontaneous
Combustion possible ; 2 nd , that there are no known conditions of disease which can make it so ; 3 rd , that there is no possibility of the presence of inflammable gases in the body ( save occasionally in the colon ); and 4 th , that all theories advanced in its favour are in violation of fundamental laws . I will endeavour to do this in language intelligible even to those who have never attended a course of lectures , nor read a scientific treatise .
The human body in its healthy state is not readily combustible ; indeed , it is extremely difficult to burn . And let me , at the outset , remove some of the equivocation lying in the word burn . " We say , '' I burnt my finger , " and "I burnt the paper . ' * Here are two very different processes named by the same word . You may easily burn your finger , but you cannot burn it as the paper is burned , that is to say , make it ignite , and produce ajlame which shall carry on the combustion from one part to another : the continued application of intense heat is absolutely necessary for that ; and yet for Spontaneous Combustion ( as distinguished from a local burn ) the flamo and the combustibility are indispensable . Whenever I use the word " burn" I shall use it in this sense , because in this sense alone is it applicable here .
As a primary fact then , wo have what may be termed the incombustibility of the living body . Professor Apjohn indeed tells us , in that article already alluded to , ( Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine , art ., Spon . Comb . ) " tho human body is a combustible compound . " Yes ! so is a pianoforte . But how combustible P Not at all whilo living , and with great difficulty when dead . You cannot burn living flesh , you must dry it first , and in drying it you . ' destroy its vitality . Tho reason is simple . The human body consists principally of water . A man weighing 120 / 6 . ? . has about SOlbs . of pure water in his composition ; and that water is
indispensable to his vitality . Observe , I do not say {) Olbs . of liquid moroly , but i ) Olbs . of water . Now , let ; us supposo tho solid portions of the tissues which contain , tho water as a spongo does , to be very inflammable substances , ( though in truth the earthy portions of those solids are not ) yet you will boo at onco they will not ignito whilo tho water is there , any more than gunpowder would ignite- if it were mixed with throe-fourths of water ; tho water must first bo evaporated ; and that in why continued application of intonso heat is necessary to burn flesh . J * ot mo now quote Liebig on this point : —
" In tlio living body 0110 oircuinsfcnnco opjxwcH its being act flro to and burned , winch is ¦ alwent in tho < loiul body ; iminoly , tho circulation of tho blood . Tn a pieeo of flesh a < : to < l oh by firo , tho HuhIh which moiston it remain wliero they are till evaporated ; but in ft living bod y thoro flown through all , ovon tho minutcHt part * , a current of blood whiuh causoa thin result , that tho hentod portions aro conntantly carried awny and roplaeod by cooler portion *) . If the fno without bo very florco , a react ion tukon place from tho blood , constating in a How of wator outwards towards tho heated point . Tho slcin is detached from tho mibjiuwni parts , and u blintor , full of wator , in thus formed . Ho long aH tho current of blood continues , the Ijody may be injured by external heat ; but it cannot burn , or become burned or charred , till tho circulation has ceased ; that 1 h , till death has taken place . " Thi » muoh tbon wo have ascertained , ; jn { , he living normal condition
the human body is incombustible , or nearly so . It can be destroyed , it cannot be made to ignite , except by intense heat long applied . But the adherents to your cause will consider such a demonstration as superfluous , because they conceive it quite possible for disease to generate certain morbid conditions which shall alter the whole case , and render the body combustible . In the same way it is argued , one cannot , in a normal condition , see from this standing point of England what Sir John Franklin may
be doing among the Arctic snows , but in the clairvoyante there is an abnormal condition generated which makes it easy for her to sec ! A positive philosopher requires some other proof than may lie in the vague phrase " abnormal condition ; " and a student of physiology will require something more precise than " morbid conditions" unspecified ; for myself I can imagine no such conditions so long as the human body is constituted as at present . But let us look into the matter .
Your friends will probably lay little stress on Liebig ' s pertinent remark that no one of the " Spontaneous" theorists "has ever occupied himself with experiments to learn the behaviour of animal matter in the fire . No one of them has ever in his life observed a morbid state by which tho body is rendered easily or quickly combustible . " This is but a negative argument , and the arguments by which the theory is supported are at any rate positive in their statement . Positive , but not felicitous . Fodere ( Medecine Legale , iii . p . 219 , ) thinks that the incombustibility of the healthy body is owing to the perfection of the process of assimilation whereby the vital force is enabled to protect the tissues from physical laws , such as tlie action of the atmosphere ; and that when habitual drunkenness has weakened this assimilation , vitality is no longer powerful
enough to withstand physical laws . Fodere was , you assure me , one of the " pestilent Frenchmen , who would investigate the matter . " If I had no other grounds for refusing to admit his competence in this case , the passage just referred to would suffice ; and for these reasons : — 1 st . It is not the vital force which makes the body incombustible , it is the presence of water . 2 nd . The action of the atmosphere on the tissues , which this absurd vital force is absurdly made to resist , ( Fodere forgetting that the action goes on incessantly in the oxidation of the tissues by means of respiration !) is not that of combustion , but of decay— the dead body does not ignite , it
decays . . 3 rd . Any other weakening of the assimilative power would , on this reasoning , lead to Spontaneous Combustion . The notion that " vital force" ( a name used to conceal our ignorance ) resists the action ofphyaicallaws , is very common , if not universal ; indeed I believe I may claim to have been the first who promulgated the opposite view . * Because the living body " resists decay , " it is supposed that chemical laws are overruled by vital force . Without entering into tho thousand and one cases of chemical composition and decomposition which take place in the hody , transforming food into blood , blood into tissue ,
and tissue into waste matter , without , I say , touching on the minutiae of organic chemistry , I think it can bo made clear that , when nny chemical law is " overruled , " it is by another chemical law , and not by " vital force ;" in other words , organic chemistry operates by the same laws as inorganic chemistry , and if a force seems to bo held in abeyance it is because tho path of its direction is intersected by some stronger force . Any student of chemistry will suggest a thousand examples . Here is one—sulphur has an affinity for load ; it is a chemical Jaw that sulphur will combine with lead if unobstructed . But if you fuso iron and lead together in a cruciblo
containing sulphur , the iron separates from the lead and combines with the sulphur , because its affinity for sulphur in stronger than its affinity for lead , and so long as a particle of iron remains imcornbined with sulphur the affinity of lead for sulphur remains imperative , i . e ., a chemical law is overruled . What seems to he the suspension of chemical lawa in vital processes is equally owing to the modifying influence of some other chemical ( or physical ) force ; . Thus the free alkali in the blood adects tho combination of organic ! compounds with oxygen in a way unknown in tho absence of alkali ; milk sugar may by it bo made to deprive even metallic oxides of their oxygen .
" Vital force" does not prevent the action of the atmosphere , for that action is incessant . . Every moment admits oxygen , and this oxygen burns tho carbon and hydrogen , burns tho living Uhkuch , just as it would burn tho dead body . Vital force does not prevent the action , it repairs the breach ! The waste of tissue in incessant . Kvcvy time you movo your arm , wink your eye , or think 11 thought , a particle of solid substance has been wasted—burned . Hut you are none I lie poorer . . If tho waste ia inccRBRnt , incessant also the repair ! Food fnrniHln'H fuel to tho " devouring element" of fire . AsHiniilution in the active stoker who tuipplicR the
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Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not makelawa—they interpret and try to enforcethem . —Edinburgh Review .
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Febeuary 12 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 161
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* ThiiH , in ( ho phyHiolopieul treatise published within tho 1 uh ( , month , w <> rend , — " It ia ono of tho chief peculiarities of tho Vital i ' orco , that it in able , n > long an it ih capablo of boing fully exerted , to resist ami keep at l » iy tho influence of thtwo Chemical and Physical forces , which would fend , were it not for thin property of tho living HuhHtanoo , to effect its npeody disintegration find « lcray . "—Dr . Carpenter , Human Vhysiolotiu , 4 th edition , p . i > f > . Yet Dr . Carpenter is one of those who have moat contributed to discredit the nietiiphysicnl fiction of Vital force . l , ot uw > odd , let anticipate misconception , that «<> far from ignoring tho . specialit . j / of physiological lawe , 1 quite agree with those who dony that organic chemistry him any chain to a Hopa . ra . to existence , mid thinJk that what je called organic chemistry roally belongs to tho domain of physiology ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 12, 1853, page 161, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1973/page/17/
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