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Doctors are awaiting the test results of Rahul, the three-month-old boy who allegedly catches fire on his own a condition called spontaneous human combustion which most experts and scientists believe is a hoax. Born in a village near Tindivanam, Rahul has been undergoing treatment at Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital since Friday. His mother claims he has caught fire spontaneously four times.
Head of department of paediatrics Dr Narayana Babu told TOI on Sunday that the child's internal organs were normal and there were no indications of fractures. We're exploring all possibilities, including a case of abuse. The baby's organs are functioning normally and he is stable now, said Dr Babu. Most of Rahul's burn injuries have healed but he has scars on his head, hands, stomach and legs after he caught fire a month ago. The baby doesn't have any scars or burn injuries on his back. This could be because he was lying on his back and there was no air contact to cause a fire, said the doctor.
Is spontaneous human combustion real?
For long the scientific community has doubted even the existence of a condition like this. As of 1995, there have only been 200 reported cases in the last 300 years. The most common scientific explanation is that food is converted into methane inside the body which when released by body pores can lead to a fire triggered by various sources though most experts don't buy this.
At most times it s caused by an unnoticeable small source like a candle or a cigarette which goes undetected. An extensive two-year research project involving 30 cases of alleged SHC conducted in 1984 found that all the cases actually had plausible sources for ignition that was left out of popular accounts of the incidents. At other times, the victim was either drunk or incapacitated in some other way which would make the victim unable to respond properly to the fire. As Benjamin Radford, science writer and deputy editor of the science magazine Skeptical Inquirer, asks If SHC is a real phenomenon (and not the result of an elderly or infirm person being too close to a flame source), why doesn t it happen more often? There are 6 billion people in the world, and yet we don t see reports of people bursting into flame while walking down the street, attending football games, or sipping a coffee at a local Starbucks. Read on to find out more...