ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The Incombustible Man

• In Event: Possessed, “Crippled”, Uncombustible: Bodies at the Limit of Technologies and Genders

English Abstract

On 6 May 1806, a commission from the Madrid Academy of Medicine gathered at the Royal Chemistry Laboratory to test the supposed resistance to fire and high temperatures of the young Faustino Chacón before a distinguished audience. Known as ‘the incombustible man,’ Chacón had performed in Spain and France in shows in which he walked on red-hot iron plates, dipped his hands in boiling oil, and drank sulphuric acid, among other wonders. Regardless of whether the doctors’ tests to Chacon might resemble inquisitorial trials, Spanish academics used Chacón to highlight their belonging to an international scientific network. Beyond the already known roles of spectacles as legitimators of experts and the new sciences, this paper analyzes how Chacon’s abilities related to material culture and ideas about life and heat. In particular, to the research on pyro-resistant materials and anesthetics drugs; on current debates about the role of habits in changing sensitivity to heat and cold, and the pulse beat as a measure of internal states. Rather than isolated, Chacon’s case was discussed alongside an extensive lineage of men and women throughout history who seemed to defy the scorching power of fire, from Greek priestesses to Spanish saludadores (literally, healers), to experiments described in the Royal Society of London and the French Academy with both sexes.

Author

• Elena Serrano, Institute of History of Science. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona