“The light came from candles, and in December 1755, [Eddystone Rocks lighthouse] keeper, Henry Hall, found the lantern room on fire. No lives were lost that night but Hall himself died twelve days later, after complaining that his insides felt as if they were burning. It was not, as his friends had supposed, some form of post-traumatic shock. While gazing up in open-mouthed horror at the conflagration he accidentally swallowed some molten lead that was falling from the roof. A postmortem found seven ounces of it in his intestines.”
—Rosemary Hill, “Coiling in Anarchy”, London Review of Books