Spontaneous Human Combustion and Other Imaginary Maladies

William E. Stempsey, S.J. (College of the Holy Cross)

Nineteenth-century medical journals feature many reports of diseases that now seem altogether preposterous, or at least hopelessly clouded by then-current social mores. Drapetomania, the desire of slaves to run away; sudden death by drinking cold water; and several serious medical effects of masturbation were accepted as real diseases by many in the medical establishment. Spontaneous human combustion is a particularly interesting malady that was also well recognized in the nineteenth century and was often associated with excessive drinking. In Bleak House, Charles Dickens graphically describes the conflagration of the alcoholic Mr. Krook. But unlike the other conditions, now generally recognized as wrong-headed attempts to turn social disapproval into disease, spontaneous human combustion continues to attract attention, mostly in the literature of paranormal phenomena but also in conventional medical literature.

Conditions such as spontaneous human combustion raise important questions about the nature of disease. Ludwik Fleck, in his Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, has shown how “thought styles” shape the development of scientific fact. Of particular interest with respect to spontaneous human combustion is his discussion of ideograms, graphic representations of certain ideas and meanings, and how ideograms condition what we take to be objective observation.

Image and imagination influence our conception of disease. The evolution of understanding of a disease usually begins with observation; only over time does a disease acquire a satisfactory explanation. Spontaneous human combustion has no satisfactory explanation. So, it has not evolved into a modern disease but remains a mere observation. But even to call it an observation requires seeing it ideogrammatically. Although the reality of spontaneous human combustion strains twenty-first century credibility, there are interesting parallels between spontaneous human combustion and some other maladies, including sudden infant death syndrome. Both apparently fictitious diseases and undoubtedly real diseases are imaginary in an important sense.