coming in contact with some flame, and being thus communicated inwardly,
that is the cause of the combustion, and therefore it cannot be
spontaneous; and he cites several instances of persons addicted to
spirituous liquors being thus burnt. Moreover, it is stated that an
anatomical lecturer, at Pisa, in the year 1597, happening to hold a
lighted candle near a subject he was dissecting, on a sudden set fire to
the vapours that came out of the stomach he had just opened. In the same
year, as Dr. Ruisch, then anatomical professor at Pisa, was dissecting a
woman, and a student holding a candle to give him light, he no sooner
opened the stomach than there issued a yellow, greenish flame. Also at
Lyons, in dissecting a woman, the stomach was no sooner opened than a
considerable flame burst out and filled the room. This has been
accounted for by experiments made by Dr. Vulpari, anatomical professor
at Bologna. He affirms that any one may see, issuing from the stomach of
an animal, a matter that burns like spirits of wine, if the upper and
lower orifices are bound fast with a strong thread, and the stomach
being thus tied, be cut above and under the ligature, and afterwards
pressed with both hands, so as to make all that it contains pass on
one side, and to produce a swelling on that part which contains the
incision, which must be held with the left hand, to prevent the
inflammable air escaping. This hand being removed, and a candle applied
about an inch from the stomach, a blueish flame will issue, which will
last nearly a minute. The circumstances of the case of Grace Pitt, to
which your Correspondent refers, perfectly coincide with the foregoing
remarks. She was accustomed for several years to go down stairs after
she was undressed, to _smoke a pipe_. Her daughter, who slept with
her, did not miss her till the morning, when on going down stairs, she
found her mother's body extended _over the hearth_, and appearing
like a block of wood burning with a glowing fire, without flame. She
was, no doubt, in the act of lighting her pipe, either at the fire or