A man was burned to death in Ireland in December of 2010.
The Irish Independent reported that a coroner ruled that he had died of a strange phenomenon called human combustion.
Over the centuries, this phenomenon has been understood as a body suddenly bursting into flames.
Roger Byard, a Pathologist at the University of Adelaide, told Insider that coroners typically walk into a scene where the victim's hands and feet are intact. Furniture near each other is usually undamaged.
Why doesn't the phenomenon happen more often? The past 300 years has seen about 200 reports of such events.
People do not spontaneously combust, according to Byard.
The first case of spontaneously human combustion was described in the 17th century.
It came from Italy in the late 14th century, when a knight drank wine and set himself on fire.
The excessive consumption of alcohol was associated with the idea of a human suddenly catching fire.
Dickens wrote about the myth in his novel "Bleak House" in the 19th century. A character named Krook who was an alcoholic caught fire and died.
The Bleak House was written by Charles Dickens.
Over the years, others have said that the phenomenon was caused by God, or by something in the body.
Byard said the theories don't hold a lot of scientific weight.
"Yes, people's bodies burn, but there's no proof that it occurs as a spontaneously combustive event," he said.
Every account has had an external source of flame. Lamps and cigarettes are the most common culprits.
The wick effect suggests that humans can act like candles.
Scientists in the UK replicated the same conditions with a dead pig. They put the pig in a blanket and set it ablaze. The pig's feet were left behind, just like many reported cases of human combustion.
The wick theory suggests that fat acts as a fuel source and that a human body is kept ablaze through its own fat after being lit. The blankets and clothing act like candles.
"You can imagine people wrapped in blankets, drinking spirits, and spilling them, which act like gasoline or petrol," Byard said. They drop a cigarette into a large pool of alcohol and it burns very slowly. Fat can burn at very cold temperatures.
Because they don't have as much fat, hands and feet don't have enough to burn.
Byard said that people believe in urban myths. The underlying mechanism is very easy to understand.
The original article was published by Business Insider.
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