Popular medical errors / [James Bower Harrison].

  • Harrison, James Bower
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Popular medical errors / [James Bower Harrison]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    accustomed to take spirituous liquors to excess, and who took little nourishment, sat down one evening to sleep in her chair, and was found consumed in the morning, so that no part of her was found except the skull and the extreme joints of her fingers; all the rest of her body was reduced to ashes.”* One case is related of a Madame de Bolseon, who was found T)y her maid on fire one day after she had left her for a few moments. Water was brought and thrown on her, but it only seemed to make the fire rage more and more. Finally, she was burnt to a skeleton in her chair, which, by the by, was only a little scorched. These cases, I think, will suffice ; many more might be ad- duced, but they all seem to be of the same kind. I think it would require very good evidence to make one credit them. That combustion of the human body can arise spontaneously, as the term implies, does not, I think, find many partisans at the present time; but as in most of the cases i-ecorded there seems reason to believe that the patient was placed in circumstances in which he miglit catch fire from * Beck’s Medical Jurisprudence, p. 525.
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