it's extremely funny reading historical accounts of Spontaneous Human Combustion because it follows the normal historical trend of other 1800s paranormal phenomena where it stopped happening as much right around the time cameras were invented and stopped happening entirely when everyone started carrying mini cameras in their pockets, but unlike most others of its ilk, it was effectively replaced by this mysterious phenomena where alocoholics would spill liqour on themselves and then fall asleep smoking a cigarette and turn into a fireball. nobody knows if these two things are related
There are several other reasons why all the supernatural happenings of the 1800s (spontaneous human combustion in particular) tapered off.
People stopped wallpapering their homes with stuff that exuded mild hallucinogenics.
People got a lot better about realizing black mold existed, black mold probably shouldn't exist in their house, and preventing black mold from existing in their house.
People stopped lighting their homes with gas flames, which meant they no longer had sprawling conduits of leaky gas tubing throughout every room of their house that tended to outgas even when not lit. (Which was pulling a double-hitter of both causing shit to randomly catch on fire -and- making everyone wildly hallucinate)
People stopped (and I am being very serious, this is just what people did) filling washing tubs full of gasoline and using the gasoline to scrub out persistent stains from their clothes they'd then put on and wear while smoking cigarettes by the giant open hearth that provided most of the heat of their parlor room.
(Between ghost photography, "Sherlock Holmes and The Case of the Dancing Faeries", and inadvertent double-exposures, I suspect it took a few years before cameras started reducing the amount of strange happenings instead of increasing them.)
