A few apochryphal cases
only have been recorded. The opinion that the tissues of
drunkards might be so saturated with alcohol as to render the
body combustible is disproved by the simple experiment of placing
flesh in spirits for a long time and then trying to burn it.
Liebig and others found that flesh soaked in alcohol would burn
only until the alcohol was consumed. That various substances
ignite spontaneously is explained by chemic phenomena, the
conditions of which do not exist in the human frame. Watkins in
speaking of the inflammability of the human body remarks that on
one occasion he tried to consume the body of a pirate given to
him by a U. S. Marshal. He built a rousing fire and piled wood on
all night, and had not got the body consumed by the forenoon of
the following day. Quite a feasible reason for supposed
spontaneous human combustion is to be found in several cases
quoted by Taylor, in which persons falling asleep, possibly near
a fire, have been accidentally ignited, and becoming first
stupefied by the smoke, and then suffocated, have been burned to
charcoal without awaking. Drunkenness or great exhaustion may
also explain certain cases. In substantiation of the possibility
of Taylor's instances several prominent physiologists have
remarked that persons have endured severe burns during sleep and
have never wakened.
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