This case is from the work of Foderé, and is given as abridged by Paris and Fonblanque, in their excellent treatise on Medical Jurisprudence. It occurred in 1776, and is one of the best authenticated to be met with. I am not aware that the subject of it was a drunkard; if he were not, and if the facts be really true, we must conclude that spontaneous combustion may occur in sober persons as well as in the dissipated. CASE OF MADAME MILLET.—“Having,” says Le Cat, “spent several months at Rheims, in the years 1724 and 1725, I lodged at the house of Sieur Millet, whose wife got intoxicated every day. The domestic economy of the family was managed by a pretty young girl, which I must not omit to remark, in order that all the circumstances which accompanied the fact I am about to relate, may be better understood. This woman was found consumed on the 10th of February, 1725, at the distance of a foot and a half from the hearth in her kitchen. A part of the head only, with a portion of the lower extremities, and a few of the vertebræ, had escaped combustion. A foot and a half of the flooring under the body had been consumed, but a kneading trough and a powdering tub, which were very near the body, sustained no injury. M. Chriteen, a surgeon, examined the remains of the body with every judicial formality. Jean Millet, the husband, being interrogated by the judges who instituted the inquiry into the affair, declared, that about eight in the evening, on the 9th of February, he had retired to rest with his wife, who not being able to sleep, went into the kitchen, where he thought she was warming herself; that, having fallen asleep, he was awakened about two o’clock by an infectious odour, and that, having run to the kitchen, he found the remains of his wife in the state described in the report of the physicians and surgeons. The judges, having no suspicion of the real cause of this event, prosecuted the affair with the utmost diligence. It was very unfortunate for Millet that he had a handsome servant-maid, for neither his probity nor innocence were able to save him from the suspicion of having got rid of his wife by a concerted plot, and of having arranged the rest of the circumstances in such a manner as to give it the appearance of an accident. He experienced, therefore, the whole severity of the law; and though, by an appeal to a superior and very enlightened court, which discovered the cause of the combustion, he came off victorious, he suffered so much from uneasiness of mind, that he was obliged to pass the remainder of his days in an hospital.” The above case has a peculiar importance attached to it, for it shows that, in consequence of combustion, possibly spontaneous, persons have been accused of murder. Foderé, in his work, alludes to several cases of this kind.