"MIRACLES" AT LOURDES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7022, 10 January 1910, Page 3

"MIRACLES" AT LOURDES

FEOSI OUB SPECIAL COEEEBPONDENT. LONDON, November 26. Everyone has heard of the annual pilgrimage at Lourdes, and of the wonderful cures said to have been effected there since the day fifty years *go when the A 7 irgin is supposed to have appeared to a simple peasant girl. These modern .miracles have been during the week the theme of a libel action in Munich, and the object of some very blunt criticism on the part of various medical .witnesses. Dr Aigner, a Munich physician, wrote in the "Twentieth Century," a publication edited by himself, an article in which, while admitting that cures did happen at Lourdes, he declared that they affected 1 exclusively nervous disorders and nerve organic diseases, and, consequently, that they could not be regarded as miraculous. To this a Catholic paper, the "Lothringer Volksstimiue," made a reply in terms so sharp that Dr Aigner took proceedings for libel. One famous case with regard to which 'evidence has been heard in this libel action is that of Frau Rouchel, who was supposed to have been cured of lupus. The patient eventually appeared before the Metz Medical Association, with the result,that that body unanimously passed the following resolutions :

1. A cure has not taken place. 2. The improvement observed in the patient's condition is explicable on natural grounds.

Dr Ernst, of Metz, on whose testimony tho Lourdes authorities chiefly relied in their contention that the case was oue of the most remarkable on record, now said that Frau Eouchel came to him in 1901 with a clearly developed lupus on the uppea: lip and cheek. He treated 'her in conjunction with a specialist, but the disease ; took its course. Tor a long time he heard nothing of her, but'One day she came and asked him for a certificate for the Lourdes pilgrimage. By this time the disease had spread over the entire cheek, and there were several' perforations, fie read in the papers that the woman had been, cured in Lourdes. Subsequently he examined her, together with Dr Mueller, who agreed with him that, while the disease had not been cured, an extraordinary improvement had taken place in tho patient's condition. SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM.

The, next witness was the said Dr Mueller, who, however, denied that he had been of the opinion attributed to him, viz., that the improvement in Frau Rouchel's condition had been at all uncommon. On the contrary, the case was typical of lupus, which, as every specialist was aware, was subject to interruptions in its progress, accompanied by the temporary healing of the lesions. The woman now presented a deplorable picture of' lupus in an advanced stage, so that he could not understand how anyone could have said that she was cured, or even extraordinarily improved. This had for. yeairs been, the "show" case of Lourdes, and was, said the witness, characteristic of the methods em- ' ployed there. Numerous photographs of the woman had been published in Lourdes leaflets and in a brochure by Dr von Westphaleh, but they all showed onlv the healthy side of the face, that which was afflicted by the disease being so heavily shadowed that nothing could be 6een of it. Professor G'udden, of Munich, expressed the opinion that the cure in the case of a child with a double club -'foot was due, not to miraculous agencies, but to the stimulating effect of four cold baths taken one after another. In other cases all authentic evidence, such as. a journal of the 'progress of the disease, was entirely lacking. Another Munich medical savant declared roundly that not a single Lourdes cure could stand before scientific criticism. When one read Lourdes literature, he said, one got the idea that it was a comedy, with which no scientist should trouble himself. 1