Each of us knows that the normal body temperature of a healthy person is 36.6 degrees Celsius. When the temperature rises to 42 degrees, the protein in the body is folded, amino acids are destroyed, and brain cells die off. And this means death.
External exposure to high temperatures on human skin causes severe burns. But there are people who are able to get out of the fire alive and healthy, without any traces of burns on their skin. Their name is people-salamanders.
The word "salamander" in translation from Greek means "living in fire". According to the mythological encyclopedia, “salamanders in medieval beliefs and magic are spirits, keepers of fire and its personification. They live in any open fire. They often appear as a small lizard. Quite often, a salamander can be found on the slope of a volcano during an eruption.
She also appears in the flames of the fire, if she herself wishes to do so. In addition, the ancients believed that the body of a salamander is so cold that it can extinguish a fire. But almost every legend has some kind of real explanation. So it is in this case. It is known that salamanders are shy and cautious creatures that cannot stand dry places.
Most often, they hide in broken, wet trees. And when a person, lighting a fire, throws these logs into the fire, the salamander jumps out of his shelter. And it seemed to the ancients that a lizard appears from the flame. Everything is simple here, but how to explain why some people have the ability to not burn in fire until no one could.
FROM THE DEPTH OF AGES
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Such unusual people have always existed. Their abilities frightened their contemporaries, the clergy considered people-salamanders possessed by demons, and most often they died at the hands of the executioner. The very first story that has come down to us is the story of Polycarp of Smirensky, who lived in the 2nd century AD. For some sins he was sentenced to be burned at the stake.
But when the fire burned out, the people present at the execution saw with fear and amazement the "executed" alive and well. A second execution was ordered, and Polycarp of Smirensky was killed by a spear.
Several centuries later, in the 17th century, Maria Medici sheltered an orphan at her court, the young Countess René de Vallombrez. Once, when the girl fell asleep, sitting by the fireplace, the fire spread to her. Flames engulfed the Countess's dress and hair, but she did not even wake up. The doctor who examined her was surprised to note the absence of burns and absolutely unaffected clothing. At that time, a special closeness to the queen saved the girl from accusations of witchcraft. It was rumored that all the women in the Countess's family possessed such unusual abilities.
There is also documentary evidence of the existence of salamander people. Recently, in the archives of the Lancashire County History Museum, notes were found by a priest who lived in the 17th century, which speaks of witches sentenced to burning:
“When the guards piled brushwood around the women and brought a torch to light the fire, the latter began to shout out incomprehensible words. The fire shot up, but did not cause any harm to the condemned woman, who remained completely calm. The executioners had to put another armful of firewood to her post. And only half an hour later a burnt corpse appeared in front of the assembled crowd, while the first healer died five minutes later.
MARIE SONNE - GIRL SALAMANDRA
In the 18th century, Maria Sonne lived in the Provencal province, about whom there were rumors that she did not burn in a fire. This story was very interested in Louis XV, and he ordered to take the girl to the court to personally verify her abilities and decide her future fate.
In front of the members of the commission, a huge bonfire was lit in one of the halls of the Sorbonne. Marie, dressed only in a linen shirt, boldly entered the flame and lay down on a specially arranged metal bed over the fire. So she lay for about an hour and came out of the fire completely unburned, even her hair, eyelashes and clothes were intact. Surprisingly, the churchmen made the following verdict: "The hand of the Lord has kept her, for she is without sin."
What happened next with the girl is unknown. There is a version that Pope Benedict hid her because he feared that the miracles of the Gospel would fade before her gift.
EXTREME BATHING
In the middle of the 18th century, a certain Bruno Cassioli studied at the University of Padua, who remained in the memories of his contemporaries as a man who could bathe in boiling oil. It all started with the fact that Bruno and his friends once went into a soap factory and, undressing, plunged into a kettle with a boiling alkali solution.
With this, he scared the owner of the soap factory to death, and he called the city guards, fearing that he would be accused of murder. But when the guards arrived, Cassioli calmly climbed out of the cauldron and began to dry himself.
Since then, the salamander man entertained acquaintances by drinking boiling water removed from the fire and even oil. At the same time, he did not even have a slight reddening of the larynx. In the end, the rector got tired of these ideas, bringing confusion to the souls of believing Catholics, and he expelled the problem student. To make some money, Bruno went to Germany and began to give performances there. Perhaps everything would have gone on like this if the rumor about him had not reached the Inquisition. He was brutally tortured and executed.
DOES NOT BURN IN FIRE
The human salamander Nathan Coker from Denton (USA) also remained in history. As a child, black Nathan was enslaved by Attorney Perner. The constant hunger that the boy experienced, and discovered unusual abilities in him. One day, after waiting for the cook to turn away from the pan, Nathan put his hand into the brew, pulled out hot dumplings and ate them instantly.
And suddenly he realized that he did not hurt from contact with boiling water. Then he constantly used this discovery: he removed the fat from the surface of the boiling broth. When slavery was abolished, Nathan found himself a job where his abilities came in handy. He got a job in a forge and could take out the red-hot metal directly from the forge with his bare hands. Newspapers wrote about Coker, he became a rather famous person.
AMONG US
You can, of course, not believe the old stories, but nowadays there are people-salamanders. In the 1980s in India, workers were brewing tar on the roof, and one of them fell into a barrel of burning liquid. The people around in panic began to call for help, but what was their surprise when the victim got out of the barrel, as if he was just taking a bath. The ambulance doctors who arrived at the scene did not find a single burn on his body.
In Novokuznetsk, even now, the worker of the steel plant A. Silin calmly plunges his hand into the red-hot metal, which flows around the brush, without causing harm to the person.
In August 2005, Agence France Presse reported the Argentinean Antonio Acosta, who was in the oven for almost 20 minutes. He was driven by ambition, the desire to get into the Guinness Book of Records.
“According to him, in the presence of a notary, he spent a third of an hour inside the rotating oven of the city bakery of Saint-Cayetano de Rosario, while the temperature inside was 284 degrees Celsius. "It was my old dream," Acosta, who makes a living making and repairing bakery equipment, told reporters after a deadly experiment.
There are almost no scientific hypotheses about such strange people. Perhaps this is some special unknown form of protein life. Or maybe there is some kind of protective field that protects the body of a salamander man and his clothes from the effects of fire.
Alexandra ORLOVA