From 1799, a list of risk factors for spontaneous combustion, plus more recent science

The list (see below) is part of this rather fascinating Lapham's Quarterly article on alcohol-induced spontaneous Human Combustion (wiki) ("SHC"). The article includes accounts of some of the 18th century reports of SHC as well as more details on the relationship between these reports and the Temperance movement. 

By 1799, there were enough cases on record for one physician, Pierre Lair, to identify some patterns and recurring characteristics of victims of spontaneous human combustion:

1. Victims were older, usually over 60.
2. Victims were overweight.
3. Victims led inactive lives.
4. Victims were alcoholics (the temperance movement latched onto this one).
5. Women were more prone to spontaneously combust than men.
6. At the scene there was often an external flame, such as a candle or fireplace.
7. Combustion was extremely rapid.
8. The flames were difficult to extinguish.
9. The flames produced a strong empyreumatic odor.
10. The surrounding room was coated with a thick, yellow, greasy film.
11. The first usually consumed the trunk of the body, but left the head and extremities intact.
12. Accidents occurred during fair weather, and more often in winter than in summer.

Lair also ranked various spirits in terms of their likely contribution to Spontaneous Combustion: gin, followed by brandy, whiskey, and finally, rum.

It's interesting to compare this list to more recent attempts to determine whether the phenomenon is real or possible: A Cambridge professor has tackled the issue of spontaneous combustion – using belly pork.

Prof Brian J Ford is a research biologist and author of more than 30 books, most about cell biology and microscopy but he has turned his attention to the mechanisms behind why people ‘explode’.

He said in an article in New Scientist (behind subscription firewall): “One minute they may be relaxing in a chair, the next they erupt into a fireball. 

“Jets of blue fire shoot from their bodies like flames from a blowtorch, and within half an hour they are reduced to a pile of ash.

“Typically, the legs remain unscathed sticking out grotesquely from the smoking cinders. Nearby objects – a pile of newspapers on the armrest, for example – are untouched.”

Prof Ford wanted to disprove the alcoholism theory and also something called the ‘wick effect’ suggested by London coroner Gavin Thurston in 1961.

Thurston had described how human fat burns at about 250c, but if melted it will combust on a wick – such as clothes or other material – at room temperatures:

“I felt it was time to test the realities, so we marinated pork abdominal tissue in ethanol for a week.

“Even when cloaked in gauze moistened with alcohol, it would not burn.

“Alcohol is not normally present in our tissues, but there is one flammable constituent in the body that can greatly increase in concentration.” 

The body creates acetone, which is highly flammable. He added: 

“A range of conditions can produce ketosis, in which acetone is formed, including alcoholism, fat-free dieting, diabetes and even teething.

“So we marinated pork tissue in acetone, rather than ethanol.

“This was used to make scale models of humans, which we clothed and set alight.

“They burned to ash within half an hour.

“For the first time a feasible cause of human combustion has been experimentally demonstrated.”

More:

Further reading on the wick effect and on SHC.

io9 has an article from 2011: 10 Cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion

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Ulysses fan? Today is Bloomsday - here's my favorite quote from Joyce's obscenity trial

Today is Bloomsday, a celebration of James Joyce's Ulysses,(wiki) a novel about a day in the life of Leopold Bloom as he wanders about Dublin. The festivities generally involve reading the novel aloud (generally a group project, and it takes a loooong time) and drinking.

Final lines from Ulysses are from Molly Bloom, who is lying in bed with her lover: 

" ...I was a flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

My favorite bit of trivia about Ulysses comes from Joyce's obscenity trial (the book was banned in various places for quite a while):

 “[i]n respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of [Joyce's] characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring.”

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Add some weasel brain to your cheese to keep rats and mice away: Advice from 1649

Because old ways are always the best, right?

"How to make a Receit, that neither Rat nor Mouse shall eat or gnaw of your Cheese. The Weasel, the Rat, and Mouse, are at such deadly hatred one with the other, as that, if you put the brain of a Weasel into the Rennets or Curds whereof you intend to make your Cheese, neither Rats nor Mice will ever come to taste or eat thereof." 

 

~Thomas Hill, Naturall and Artificiall Conclusions (1649)

Of course there's also the goat method of chasing away rats:

"The smell of a goat is obnoxious to the nostrils of rats; the two wont be friends and companions on any account whatever, and the introduction of goats to one's barn or premises will cause an immediate stampede of all the rats."

~A. E. Youman, A Dictionary of Everyday Wants (1872)

via Ask The Past.

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Mark Steyn's song of the week is Nessun Dorma

Go to Mark's site and read the whole thing - the only thing I have to add are the videos below.

As always with these Song Of The Week posts, I find the history and connections kind of fascinating. One thing I'd never heard before is that during the 1998 Grammy awards (something I've never in my life paid attention to), Pavarotti (wiki) was to sing Nessum Dorma and backed out due to illness with 20 minutes notice. Aretha Franklin stepped up and filled in (yes, with some unoperatic embellishments, but in her case, that's a feature, not a bug): 

Here's the famous Pavarotti version:

And several years ago there was that meek-looking little guy with terrible teeth who stepped up to the mike on a Brit talent show and made himself famous:

Apparently there's a connection with the World Cup. which is a bit like the NFL playoffs but involves soccer instead of real football.

I particularly like this bit:

Whether or not it is, as Frank Johnson said, the last great song, it's certainly the last popular operatic aria. "Nessun Dorma" was written in 1924, the same year as "It Had To Be You" and "Fascinating Rhythm", a time when Italian opera was still a source of hit music. But Puccini died that November, leaving the final moments of Turandot to be pieced together from his sketches. And, with his passing, a living breathing mainstream art form ended, too. Nothing written since has resonated the way Madam Butterfly or Tosca do. At the premiere of Turandot at La Scala in 1926, Toscanini conducted up to the very last note Puccini committed to paper, and then turned to the audience and said:

At this point, the maestro laid down his pen. 

And so did an entire operatic tradition.

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Friday links

Paraskavedekatriaphobia: Why is Friday the 13th Considered Unlucky?

22 Stunning Examples Of People Painted To Look Like Animals.

All The Horrible Ways Animals Can Kill You With Venom.

Tomorrow (June 14) is Flag Day and the birthday of the U.S. Army.

Gallery: The Strange History of the Sunflower, and the History Of Light. (including how much light, historically, you could get for a day's work:

Antiquity: 10 minutes (candle)
1800s: 5 hours (kerosene)
Today: 20,000 hours (electricity))

Technologies That Replace Super Powers.

ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include vintage tech, turning paper airplanes into drones, richest superheros, and PSAs for dogs.

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One of my favorite Father's Day stories (NSFW- language)

This is from Justin Halpern, author of Sh*t My Dad Says, and is funny and weirdly touching. NSFW.

You Take What You Need From Your Father

Father’s Day has never been a big deal at my house. My dad hates celebrations. He goes through the motions for Christmas because it means a lot to my mom. He’ll put up with Easter because it means he gets to eat ham. “You can pretty much get to do whatever you want if you give me ham,” he’s said many times in my life. But Father’s Day is technically his holiday, and therefore he feels he has the right to squash it in our house. 

“Anyone can fucking procreate, and most eventually do. I refuse to celebrate a statistical probability,” he announced on Father’s Day when I was seventeen.

I was about to graduate from high school, and my relationship with my dad during the last year had been rocky. Everything we did seemed to annoy one another. I dealt with the friction by avoiding being in the house while he was there, and he dealt with it by repeating the phrase, “You mind? I’m watching the fucking Nature Channel.” 

So when he told me on the morning of Father’s Day that year that he would not partake in a celebration, frankly, I was fine with it. But my mother was not. That night I sat on my bed reading a brochure from San Diego State University, where I was heading in the fall, when the door to my room opened and my father entered.

“Sorry to interrupt whatever it is you’re doing,” he said.

“I’m just looking at some of the classes they have at State,” I said. 

“Oh yeah? Like what?” 

“You want to know?” 

“Ah, fuck it, not really. Listen, your mother thinks you’re going to go off to college and hate me and then we’re not going to be friends again until I’m dying and I got a wad of shit in my pants. That’s bullshit right?” 

“Ah – “ 

“So, look, I’m not an easy guy to get along with. I know that. But you know I would murder another human being for you if it came down to it. Murder. Fucking homicide. If it came down to it.” 

“Why would you need to do that for me?” I said. 

“I don’t know. Maybe you get mixed up in some gambling shit or you screw some guy’s wife or – don’t matter. Not my point. My point is: I may seem like an asshole, but I mean well. And I want to tell you a story,” he said, taking a seat on the foot of my bed before quickly jumping up.

“Your bed smells like shit. Where can I sit that doesn’t smell like shit?” 

I pointed to my desk chair, which was covered with dirty clothes. He brushed the clothes onto the ground and collapsed in the chair. 

“Just for your information, this chair also smells like shit. This isn’t a non-­‐shit-­‐smelling option. In case a girl comes over or something.” 

“What’s your story, Dad?” I snapped. 

“I ever tell you how I mangled my arm?” he asked, pointing to the large, white crescent-­‐shaped scar that practically circled his entire elbow.

“Yeah, lots of times. You were, like, ten and you were on the farm and you fell off a tobacco wagon, then the wagon rolled over it.” 

“Right. But I ever tell you what happened after the wagon rolled over it?”

“Maybe.” 

He leaned back in the chair. “I was laying on the ground, bones poking through my skin. Your Aunt Debbie is just going ape-­‐shit. They pop me in our car, and we drive forty-­‐five minutes to Lexington to the doctor’s. This is 1946 Kentucky, and my town was a shit stain on a map so we had to drive to the city. So the doc sees me, dresses the wounds best he can, and puts me up in the hospital bed. At this point I’m about to pass out on account of the pain.” 

“I almost had that happen once,” I interrupted. 

No you didn’t. So anyway, I’m lying in my hospital bed when your Grandpa gets there. And your Grandpa was a tough son of a bitch. He wasn’t like how you knew him; he softened up in his nineties. So Grandpa grabs the doc, and your Aunt Debbie and the two of them go outside my room. I can hear them talking, but they don’t know that. The doc tells your Grandpa that they think there’s a good chance that an infection has already taken hold in my arm. And Grandpa, in that scratchy voice he’s got, asks what that means. And the doc tells him it means they have some medicine they can give me that might kill the infection, but it might not, and if it doesn’t, I’ll die.” 

“You heard the doctor say that?” 

“Yep.” 

“What’d you do?”

“What do you mean? I had fucking bones coming out of my elbow. I didn’t do shit. So the doc tells Grandpa that there’s a 50/50 chance the medicine works. But then he says there’s another option. He tells Grandpa if they amputate my arm at the elbow, there’s a 100 percent chance that I’ll live.” 

“What did Grandpa say?” I asked, inching toward the edge of the bed. 

“He said, ‘Give him the medicine.’ And the doc says, ‘But there’s a 50 percent chance he’ll die.’ Then it’s quiet for a bit. Nobody making a fucking peep. Then I hear Grandpa clear his throat and say, ‘Then let him die. There ain’t no room in this world for a one-­‐armed farmer.”

My dad fell silent and leaned back in the chair, stretching his legs out.

My dad hadn’t told me many stories about his father at this point, and I wasn’t quite sure how he felt about the man. This was the first time I had gotten a glimpse.       

“Man, I’m really sorry, Dad.” 

“Sorry for what?” he asked, his face morphing into a look of confusion as he sat up straight in the chair. 

“Well, that’s, I don’t know, that’s really… messed up. I can’t believe Grandpa did that.” 

“What in the fuck are you talking about? The man saved my arm! They were going to cut off my arm and he saved it. That’s my point: Grandpa could be an asshole sometimes but when it came down to it he was there for me.” 

“That’s what you took from that?” 

“Hell yes. I don’t know what else you were expecting me to take. Imagine me with one goddamned arm. Be a fucking disaster. Anyway, just like Grandpa cared about me, I care about you and I don’t want you out there hating me, cause I don’t hate you. I love the shit out of you.” 

He stood up, ironing his pants’ front with his hands. 

“Jesus H. Christ, do something about the fucking smell in this room.” 

Fourteen years later, on this Father’s Day, despite his reluctance to celebrate the holiday, I’d like to thank my dad for everything he’s done for me and advise him: If a wagon ever crushes me, let’s not roll the dice. Cut off my arm, Dad. There’s more than enough room in this world for a one-­‐armed writer. 

~Justin Halpern June 2011

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Tomorrow (June 14) is Flag Day and the birthday of the U.S. Army

It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States, which happened on June 14, 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress:

That the flag of the United States shall be of thirteen stripes of alternate red and white, with a union of thirteen stars of white in a blue field, representing the new constellation.

This was the resolution adopted by the Continental Congress on June 14, 1777. The resolution was made following the report of a special committee which had been assigned to suggest the flag’s design.

A flag of this design was first carried into battle on September 11, 1777, in the Battle of the Brandywine. The American flag was first saluted by foreign naval vessels on February 14, 1778, when the Ranger, bearing the Stars and Stripes and under the command of Captain Paul Jones, arrived in a French port. The flag first flew over a foreign territory in early 1778 at Nassau, Bahama Islands, where Americans captured a British fort.

More history at this VA site.

How much do you know about the American flag?

The First Flag Day.

Lest you think it's lost it's power, remember what the flag can still accomplish:
Smoke from burning US flag kills Islamic "rally participant".

Two years earlier, on June 14, 1775, Congress adopted "the American continental army", so today is also the Birthday of the U.S. Army.

13 Fun Facts About the U.S. Flag.

John Philip Sousa's The Stars and Stripes Forever:

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