When you play with fire...
SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION OF A HUMAN BEING
The Paris Gazette des Tribunaux of Feb. 25 states that a house-painter, while drinking with some companions in an inn near the Barriere de l'Etoile, made a wager that he would eat a lighted candle. Scarcely had he placed it in his mouth, when he uttered a slight cry, and a bluish flame was seen upon his lips. In spite of all attempts to aid him, the internal fire continued, and in half an hour the head and upper portion of the chest were entirely carbonized. The fire did not cease till bones, skin, and muscles were all consumed, and nothing remained but a small heap of ashes to mark the spot where a human being had stood a short time before.
DEATH FROM WANT OF SLEEP
A Mr Lynton has lately made a communication to the Asiatic Society of London, descriptive of a mode of punishment peculiar to the criminal code of China. A Chinese merchant, named Hiam-ly, accused and convicted of having killed his wife, was sentenced to die by the total deprivation of sleep. The execution took place at Amoy, in the month of June last. The condemned was placed in prison under the surveillance of three guardians, who relieved each other every alternate hour, and who prevented him from taking any sleep, night or day. He lived thus for nineteen days, without having slept for a single minute. At the commencement of the eighth day his sufferings were so cruel, that he begged, as a great favor, that they would kill him by strangulation.
Wells, David A., and George Bliss, eds., The Annual of Scientific Discovery: or, Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art, (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1851), pp.358-59.
The Paris Gazette des Tribunaux of Feb. 25 states that a house-painter, while drinking with some companions in an inn near the Barriere de l'Etoile, made a wager that he would eat a lighted candle. Scarcely had he placed it in his mouth, when he uttered a slight cry, and a bluish flame was seen upon his lips. In spite of all attempts to aid him, the internal fire continued, and in half an hour the head and upper portion of the chest were entirely carbonized. The fire did not cease till bones, skin, and muscles were all consumed, and nothing remained but a small heap of ashes to mark the spot where a human being had stood a short time before.
DEATH FROM WANT OF SLEEP
A Mr Lynton has lately made a communication to the Asiatic Society of London, descriptive of a mode of punishment peculiar to the criminal code of China. A Chinese merchant, named Hiam-ly, accused and convicted of having killed his wife, was sentenced to die by the total deprivation of sleep. The execution took place at Amoy, in the month of June last. The condemned was placed in prison under the surveillance of three guardians, who relieved each other every alternate hour, and who prevented him from taking any sleep, night or day. He lived thus for nineteen days, without having slept for a single minute. At the commencement of the eighth day his sufferings were so cruel, that he begged, as a great favor, that they would kill him by strangulation.
Wells, David A., and George Bliss, eds., The Annual of Scientific Discovery: or, Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art, (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1851), pp.358-59.