When the wounded finally received medical attention, medics also noticed the glowing wounds, but they also discovered something else. Troops with glowing wounds survived much more frequently than soldiers without the glow. Not only did they survive, but their wounds healed quicker. Medical knowledge during the Civil War was already limited enough anyway, but they had absolutely no possible explanation for the life-saving glow. It was dubbed “Angel’s Glow,” as there was no way to describe it other than miraculous.
For a scientific explanation, we have to jump to 2001. A 17-year-old named Bill Martin and his friend Jon Curtis began studying the Angel’s Glow after a trip to the battlefield. Martin’s mother was a scientist who studied glowing bacteria called Photorhabdus luminescens, or P. luminescens, and from what Martin understood on the subject, the case of Angel’s Glow seemed to match up.
P. luminescens live inside of nematodes in a sort of symbiotic relationship. Nematodes are parasitic, and when they find a host insect to feed on, they spew up P. luminescens. The bacteria then release chemicals to kill the host and any other bacteria or anything else that might be around. Nematodes and P. luminescens are not known to be harmful to humans, and in fact, they could not survive human body temperatures in normal conditions.