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Late at night on Christmas Eve 1885, in the small town of Seneca, Illinois, Matilda Rooney was alone in her kitchen when she suddenly burst into flames!
1885年平安夜的深夜，在伊利诺伊州的塞内卡小镇，玛蒂尔达·鲁尼独自一人在厨房里突然起火！
Poor Matilda was incinerated, seemingly from the inside out, leaving only her feet.
可怜的玛蒂尔达被烧成灰烬，似乎是从里到外，只剩下她的脚。
Her husband was also killed, suffocated from the fumes, in another room of the house.
她的丈夫也在房子的另一个房间里被烟雾窒息而死。
Mysteriously, no source of ignition could be found for the blaze, and the flames had not spread to the rest of the room.
奇怪的是，大火没有找到引起大火的火源，火焰也没有蔓延到房间的其他地方。
Investigators were baffled.
调查人员对此感到困惑。
It appeared that the Rooneys had fallen victim to...Spontaneous human combustion!
看来鲁尼一家是人体自燃的受害者！
Descriptions of spontaneous human combustion date back to the 17th century and continue to be reported today, though most of the instances were recorded in the 1800s.
对人类自燃的描述可以追溯到17世纪，至今仍有报道，尽管大多数情况是在19世纪记录的。
The most notorious case in fiction is in Charles Dickenss book Bleak House, where the sleazy junk merchant, Mr. Krook, leaves behind a heap of ashes on the floor and a dark, greasy coating on the walls and ceiling.
小说中最臭名昭著的案例发生在查尔斯·狄更斯的书《荒凉山庄》中，肮脏的旧货商克鲁克在地板上留下了一堆灰烬，墙上和天花板上留下了一层黑色油腻的涂层。
Dickens later insisted such a thing was possible, citing respected physicians and famous medical cases.
狄更斯后来援引受人尊敬的医生和著名的医学案例，坚持认为这样的事情是可能的。
I shall not abandon the facts, he concluded with typical Dickensian panache, until there shall have been a considerable Spontaneous Combustion of the testimony on which human occurrences are usually received.
我不会抛弃事实，他带着狄更斯式的典型派头总结道，直到有相当多的自燃的证词，而这些通常是由人类事件所引起的。
Although the scientific support for spontaneous human combustion was weaker than Dickens stated, the public largely accepted it as a reality in his time.
尽管对人体自燃的科学支持比狄更斯所说的要弱，但在狄更斯那个时代，公众基本上接受了这一事实。
The victims were often alcoholic and overweight, so there was a general perception that this was retribution for a life of debauchery.
受害者通常是酗酒和超重的人，所以人们普遍认为这是对放荡生活的报应。
After all, it made sense that a body saturated with a flammable substance, like alcohol, would become flammable.
毕竟，被酒精等易燃物质浸透的身体会变得易燃是有道理的。
So, is spontaneous human combustion real?
那么，人体自燃是真的吗？
Should we all be afraid of bursting into flames?
我们都应该害怕突然起火吗？
The answer is almost certainly no.
答案几乎肯定是否定的。
In fact, none of the proposed scientific explanations have held up to scrutiny.
事实上，所有提出的科学解释都经不起推敲。
Outdated medical ideas, such as the notion that ignition could be the result of an imbalance of the bodily humors, are simply not true.
过时的医学观念，比如起火可能是身体体液失衡的结果，根本不是真的。
And no, high concentrations of alcohol in the body will not make you explode.
不，体内高浓度的酒精不会让你爆炸。
In the 20th century, forensic scientists noticed the wick effect, in which clothing worn by the victim can soak up melted fat, acting like the wick in a candle and allowing a body to smolder for hours.
在20世纪，法医科学家注意到了灯芯效应，受害者穿着的衣服可以吸收融化的脂肪，就像蜡烛中的灯芯一样，让尸体燃烧数小时。
This effect can produce many of the unusual signs of spontaneous human combustion, such as the nearly complete incineration of the body and the lack of fire damage to the victims surroundings.
这种效应会产生许多人类自燃的不寻常迹象，例如身体几乎完全被焚烧，没有对受害者周围造成火灾破坏。
The most likely explanation is an external source of ignition-a match, a cigarette, an electrical sparkthe evidence of which is destroyed by the blaze.
最有可能的解释是外部引火源--火柴、香烟、电火花--这些东西的证据都被大火摧毁了。
And although alcohol doesnt make the body more flammable, impairment like severe inebriation may leave victims unable to react to a slowly developing fire.
尽管酒精不会使身体变得更易燃，但严重醉酒等损伤可能会使受害者对缓慢发展的火灾无法做出反应。
So, while we may never know what truly happened to the Rooneys, its clear that the theory of spontaneous human combustion is snuffed out.
因此，虽然我们可能永远不会知道鲁尼夫妇到底发生了什么，但很明显，人类自燃的理论已经被扼杀了。
