A few apochryphal cases only have been recorded.

The opinion that the tissues of drunkards might be so saturated with alcohol as to render the body combustible is disproved by the simple experiment of placing flesh in spirits for a long time and then trying to burn it.

Liebig and others found that flesh soaked in alcohol would burn only until the alcohol was consumed.

That various substances ignite spontaneously is explained by chemic phenomena, the conditions of which do not exist in the human frame.

Watkins in speaking of the inflammability of the human body remarks that on one occasion he tried to consume the body of a pirate given to him by a U.
S.Marshal.He built a rousing fire and piled wood on all night, and had not got the body consumed by the forenoon of the following day.
Quite a feasible reason for supposed spontaneous human combustion is to be found in several cases quoted by Taylor, in which persons falling asleep, possibly near a fire, have been accidentally ignited, and becoming first stupefied by the smoke, and then suffocated, have been burned to charcoal without awaking.