Schurig tells of flames issuing from the vulva, and Moscati
records the same occurrence in parturition, Sinibaldust,
Borellus, and Bierling have also written on this subject, and the
Ephemerides contains a number of instances.
In 1763 Bianchini, Prebendary of Verona, published an account of
the death of Countess Cornelia Bandi of Cesena, who in her
sixty-second year was consumed by a fire kindled in her own body.
In explanation Bianchini said that the fire was caused in the
entrails by the inflamed effluvia of the blood, by the juices and
fermentation in the stomach, and, lastly, by fiery evaporations
which exhaled from the spirits of wine, brandy, etc. In the
Gentleman's Magazine, 1763, there is recorded an account of three
noblemen who, in emulation, drank great quantities of strong
liquor, and two of them died scorched and suffocated by a flame
forcing itself from the stomach. There is an account of a poor
woman in Paris in the last century who drank plentifully of
spirits, for three years taking virtually nothing else. Her body
became so combustible that one night while lying on a straw couch
she was spontaneously burned to ashes and smoke. The evident
cause of this combustion is too plain to be commented on.
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