Date: February 19, 1888
Previous Report <-Return to the SHC Chronology Page -> Next Report
Disclaimer
A.M., a 65-year-old penshioner and former soldier living in Aberdeen, Scotland, was last seen alive at 9 PM on Saturday, February 18, 1888, when he asked a young man and lady to shut the door of the stable he was sleeping in after him, which they did. He was intoxicated, which was not unusual for him; the young couple heard him ascend the ladder to the loft, saw a light go on in the skylight, and sometime later saw the light go out.
Between 8 and 9 AM the following morning, the wife of the proprietor of the stables, who lived near by, saw smoke coming from a hole in the roof of the loft... she told her husband, and he rushed over to check what had happened. Horrified by what he found, he called the police, and they called a medical professional to examine the remains of the old man.
Dr. J. Mackenzie Booth, a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, and physician to the Aberdeen General Dispensary, soon arrived on the scene. The first thing he noted was the same thing that the proprietor had seen... upon entering the stables, he looked up and saw the body of the old man through a hole in the ceiling. The body was being supported by the joists, and leaning against the stone wall. Once up the ladder, the curious scene only became stranger.
The body was being supported by one joist and a bit of unburned floor... and, despite a section of flooring around the body and an area in the ceiling above it all having been obviously burned away, the hay and wood in the loft near the body was undamaged. Several slates had fallen onto the body from the hole above. The body itself was almost entirely a cinder, which yet retained the general shape of the original body enough for the man's face and the wrinkles of his clothing to be clearly seen.
The greasy cinder that now formed the man's face and moustache were perfect enough for those who knew him in life to still recognize him in death. His hair and scalp were burnt away, exposing his skull. The front of the cinder body was overall intact except for the areas damaged by the falling slates; the back of the body showed no signs of clothing left, and the ribs, among other bones, were exposed to view. Booth assumed that this was due to the slate falling on the body, and conjectured that had he arrived before the slates fell, that the back of the cinder would have looked as almost perfect as the front. Both of the hands, and the right foot, had been burned off and fallen through the hole under the body into the stables below.
Unfortunately, Booth didn't get the opportunity to examine the internal organs of the old man's remains; he wanted a picture to be taken of the body (from which the illustration above was produced), and by the time he returned from other work the remains had already been removed. The bearers told him that the body had basically fallen apart upon their attempt to move it.
Observations and Theories
Booth observed that the man's face was very relaxed in its appearance, rather than pained or alarmed; from this, he concluded that the old man had likely died quietly either before or after the fire started, and the fire then had all the time it needed to slowly convert the body to the state it was found in.
After briefly studying and considering both spontaneous human combustion and preternatural combustibility as possible causes, Booth came to the conclusion that human body fat was more than combustible enough to produce the damage he had observed. He also stated his belief that the only connection between alcohol and any form of fire death was that it made people less likely to handle fire well.
A point of interest to me is that the illustration above is based on a photograph that probably hasn't been seen since around the time of A.M.'s death... I would love to see that photograph if it is still in existence!
Sources:
- Now available on Request.
See Also:
