Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

Others witnessed similar episodes involving Bernadette and candle flames. The significant fact is that Bernadette’s flesh was not burned. Bertrin (1908, pp. 50–51) stated, “A nervous state may cause insensibility, but it could not prevent fire from consuming the flesh with which it comes into contact. . . . where is the delusionary who can put his hand over a strong flame and keep it there for fifteen minutes without being burnt?”

Residents of Lourdes began taking water home from the spring in the grotto, and they claimed that it cured a variety of illnesses. Today there is a church at the site, and the spring water has been channeled into bathing pools. Pilgrims seeking cures are monitored and regulated, and since 1884 cures have been carefully documented by physicians of the Bureau des Constatations Médicales, the BCM. The membership of the BCM is not restricted to Catholics. The BCM has an office directly at Lourdes and also has an advisory committee in Paris that reviews cases of special interest (Rogo 1982, pp. 285–286).

Rogo (1982, pp. 286–287) describes the procedures the BCM employs for documenting cases: “When a Lourdes pilgrim believes that he has been cured, he is taken immediately to the BCM’s offices where he is examined by a physician, who also takes possession of all pertinent medical data and documents the patient may have brought with him. This initial evaluation at the BCM is intended to determine whether the patient was actually sick or injured at the time of his journey, was actually cured at the shrine, and was cured in a medically inexplicable way. If the healing seems to meet these three tests, a doctor registered with the bureau in the patient’s hometown or district is contacted. The patient is sent home, and the doctor there is given the responsibility of observing him for one year. This procedure serves as a precaution against the occurrence of a relapse that might not otherwise come to the attention of Lourdes officials. The doctor is also expected to interview the patient’s own physician and collect any medical records from him that may bear on the case. The patient is then asked to return to Lourdes after the year has expired, at which time he is once again examined by the BCM. Only when all the doctors involved in this evaluation agree that the cure seems inexplicable is the case given candidate status as a miracle. In making its final evaluation, the BCM looks for several characteristics that they consider differentiate a miraculous healing from a biological one. They verify that the cure was instantaneous, that it led to the termination of the patient’s convalescence, that it wasn’t consistent with the normal process the condition in question undergoes while healing biologically, and that it occurred at a time when the patient was no longer receiving any conventional treatment. Also subject to this careful analysis are cases in which a damaged limb or organ—such as a permanently damaged eye—is miraculously restored to use.”

In 1868, Pierre de Rudder, of Jabbeke, Belgium, broke his leg when he fell from a tree. Large pieces of broken bone had to be taken from the wound. The missing bone made it impossible to set the two pieces of the broken leg back together. The leg was held together only by muscle and skin. Doctors recommended amputation, but de Rudder would not consent. After eight years of tolerating this painful condition, he went to Oostacker, Belgium, home to a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. Before he went, he saw Dr. van Hoestenberghe in Jabbeke. The doctor found an open wound at the place of the break, and he could see that the two pieces of broken bone were separated by a space of three centimeters. De Rudder made the trip to Oostacker in great pain, his wound oozing pus and blood. Three men had to carry him off the train. When he arrived at the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, by aid of crutches, he began to pray. In the midst of the prayer, he was overcome by a strange feeling. He stood up without his crutches and began to walk. The broken leg bone had healed (Rogo 1982, pp. 293–294).

When de Rudder returned to Jabbeke, Dr. van Hoestenberghe examined him and was astonished to see the transformation. The doctor then wrote to the medical bureau in Lourdes: “Pierre is undoubtedly cured. I have seen him many times during the last eight years, and my medical knowledge tells me that such a cure is absolutely inexplicable. Again, he has been cured completely, suddenly, and instantaneously, without any period of convalescence. Not only have the bones been suddenly united, but a portion of bone would seem to have been actually created to take the place of those fragments I myself have seen come out of the wound” (Rogo 1982, p. 294).

In 1898, de Rudder died, and in 1900 Dr. van Hoestenberghe got permission to exhume the corpse and conduct an autopsy. His studies were documented with photographs. Rogo (1982, p. 294) states: “These photos clearly show that the two parts of de Rudder’s leg bone had been fused together by a new piece of healthy bone over an inch long that had formed, apparently instantaneously, over its broken ends. Such growth or regeneration of bone is medically unprecedented. . . . Today de Rudder’s leg bones are preserved at the University of Louvain in Belgium.”

Dr. Prosper Gustave Boissarie, a doctor with the Bureau of Medical Authentication (Bureau de Constatations Médicales, or BCM), tells of the case of Joachime Dehant. She had on her leg “a sore a foot long by six inches wide, reaching to the bone and attended by gangrene, and which had lasted twelve years” (Boissarie 1933, p. 3). The sore was the result of cholera and typhus. Dehant, who was 29 years of age, weighed only 60 pounds.

Dehant, who lived in Belgium, was sent to Lourdes at the request of the Countess of Limminghe. Dehant was so sure she would be cured, she wanted to buy a shoe and stocking for her injured leg. But Dehant stated, “There was no means of taking the measurement of my sore leg and foot. A large sore about a foot long from the ankle to the knee covered the leg, and the foot, which was all turned around, was thinner and smaller than the other. I had to be content with the measurement of the other foot” (Boissarie 1933, p. 3).

Joachime Dehant set out from Belgium on September 10. The journey by train was painful, not only for Dehant but for her traveling companions. Her sore was constantly oozing blood and pus, accompanied by a horrible smell. From time to time she changed her bandages, each time removing pieces of dead flesh. She reached Lourdes on September 13, and was taken to the bathing place. Before she went, she once more changed her bandages: “This task required more than an hour. I removed pieces of decayed bone and gangrenous flesh, which I left on the floor” (Boissarie 1933, p. 4). Her first bath did not result in a cure. The next morning, she again went to the bathing place and remained in the water for 27 minutes. When she came out, her companion, Léonie Dorval, removed the bandages and said: “Joachime, there is no longer any sore; you are cured!” Joachime replied, “Blessed be Our Lady of Lourdes! See how well she knows how to do things! She has not only put new skin on my leg, but she has made new flesh and a calf!” (Boissarie 1933, p. 5) Everyone who had seen Joachime Dehant before her cure was amazed. Dr. Boissarie stated (1933, p. 3) that she came out of the water “radically cured, with skin covering the wound.”

The next day, Joachime bathed again, and another extraordinary transformation took place. Joachime had suffered not only from a large sore but from deformation of her hip, knee, and foot. Describing what happened the day after the cure of Dehant’s sore, Bertrin (1908, pp. 105–106) stated: “Both she and her companion saw her deformed foot straighten itself until it was as straight as the hands on a clock. The leg stretched to its full length, the muscles uncontracted, and the knee resumed its normal shape. In the hip a movement was felt which caused unutterable pain. Joachime swooned, and Léonie thought she was dying. But after a time she regained consciousness and opened her eyes. All was over. The pain had completely gone, and her body which had been deformed so long had become straight and agile.”