Did you see this in the London Evening
Standard? Spontaneous human combustion
is one of those things that I look into every now and then in a brief intense
way and then forget about. Still, I
don’t think I ever heard of anybody combusting while walking.
*
Man bursts into flames and dies in front of
horrified onlookers while walking down London street
Specialist fire investigators found no
obvious reason why John Nolan, 70, might have caught alight
John Nolan, 70, caught fire in a
street in Haringey and died
Police today appealed for witnesses after a man died after catching
fire as he walked down a street in north London
Passers-by saw John Nolan, 70, ablaze in a street in Haringey in the
middle of the day and attempted to put out the flames before calling police and
fire crews.
The former construction worker, who was originally from County Mayo
in Ireland, was taken to a specialist hospital but died later.
Today detectives said his death was being treated as unexplained.
There were no accelerants found on his body and specialist fire investigators
could find no obvious reason for Mr Nolan to catch alight.
Mr Nolan, who lived in Haringey, was found in Orchard Place at 1pm
on Sunday September 17 after calls from the public.
PC Damien Ait-Amer, who is investigating the death, said: “We have
spoken with a number of witnesses who saw Mr Nolan ablaze, but we have yet to
establish how the fire started.
“Mr Nolan was a well-liked member of the community and none of our
enquiries so far have indicated that he had been involved in a dispute of any
sort. Nor does any account given by witnesses suggest that he had been in
contact with another person at the time of the fire.”
*
Most of the literature will tell you there’s no such thing as SHC, and
Charles Dickens often gets the blame for spreading the urban myth. He seems to have believed in it, not least as
a plot device: in Bleak House Mr. Krook, a man in the recycling trade, does
indeed die that way, though not while walking. This from Dickens’ 1853 preface to the novel.
“The possibility of what is
called spontaneous combustion has been denied since the death of Mr. Krook; and
my good friend Mr. Lewes (quite mistaken, as he soon found, in supposing the
thing to have been abandoned by all authorities) published some ingenious
letters to me at the time when that event was chronicled, arguing that
spontaneous combustion could not possibly be. I have no need to observe that I
do not wilfully or negligently mislead my readers and that before I wrote that
description I took pains to investigate the subject. There are about thirty
cases on record, of which the most famous, that of the Countess Cornelia de
Baudi Cesenate, was minutely investigated and described by Giuseppe Bianchini,
a prebendary of Verona, otherwise distinguished in letters, who published an
account of it at Verona in 1731, which he afterwards republished at Rome. The
appearances, beyond all rational doubt, observed in that case are the
appearances observed in Mr. Krook's case. The next most famous instance
happened at Rheims six years earlier, and the historian in that case is Le Cat,
one of the most renowned surgeons produced by France. The subject was a woman,
whose husband was ignorantly convicted of having murdered her; but on solemn
appeal to a higher court, he was acquitted because it was shown upon the
evidence that she had died the death of which this name of spontaneous
combustion is given. I do not think it necessary to add to these notable facts,
and that general reference to the authorities which will be found at page 30,
vol. ii., the
recorded opinions and experiences of distinguished medical professors, French,
English, and Scotch, in more modern days, contenting myself with observing that
I shall not abandon the facts until there shall have been a considerable
spontaneous combustion of the testimony on which human occurrences are usually
received.”
*
Alcohol is often given as a factor in SHC, as in this cartoon - the large sign for Old Tom
suggests that Pa had been knocking back the gin. It also suggests he was walking at the
time.
suggests that Pa had been knocking back the gin. It also suggests he was walking at the
time.
