Spontaneous Human Combustion Essay - 1349 Words

Spontaneous Human Combustion The world is full of the unexplained and mysterious, but is spontaneous human combustion truly spontaneous caused by the paranormal, or just simply human combustion? Most people think of spontaneous human combustion, or SHC, as ...the reduction of an otherwise normal, healthy human body to a pile of fine black ash, the consistency of which is finer than that of a cremated corpse (Spontaneous). This is simply not true. First of all, it is not complete consumption because in most cases extremities and internal organs remain because the high temperature outside the body does not penetrate internally. Secondly, the fact that the ash is so fine is often used by SHC proponents as to why the fire must by†¦show more content†¦To find a logical explanation scientists looked for a common thread in the cases. This common thread seemed to be alcohol. During this Victorian era, an evil of the Christian society was drink. SHC ...was viewed as a sort of a moral punishment for d runkenness (Cohen 195). Since the cause of SHC was believed to be drinking, many had oral remedies for SHC. In Germany the common people had great faith in liquid manure as a preventive for spontaneous combustion... (Bondeson 7). If you lived in Scandinavia at that time you may have had heard of an even more unlikely preventive. Swedish and Norwegian folklore prescribed human urine, preferably freshly voided by a woman, to be thrown into the mouth of a flowing drunkard... (Bondeson 7). During this Victorian era SHC became popular in literature. Mark Twain was one writer who popularized SHC in his book, Life on the Mississippi, during early America. Jimmy Finn was not burned in a calaboose, but died a natural death in a vat of a combination of delirium tremens and spontaneous combustion. (quoted in Cohen 192). Charles Dickens also wrote about SHC in his book, Bleak House, and he attributed it to alcohol. Dickens described the death of the drunken man, Krook, in the following manner: Here is a small burnt patch of flooring; here is the tender from a little bundle of burnt paper, but not so light as usual, seeming to be steeped inShow MoreRelatedPersonal Narrative : The Most Frightening Moment In My Life1945 Words   |  8 Pagesall the shows I watched, I really liked watching, â€Å"Unsolved Mysteries†, but I had no clue, that what I was about to watch, would change my life forever. This particular episode was talking about a phenomenon called, â€Å"Spontaneous Human Combustion†. 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