The Cures at Lourdes
Seven thousand claims, seventy miracles, and the criteria of Benedict XIV.
In the Texts
The water of the grotto, the baths, and the processions are the modern form of the holy wells and the healing shrines that fill the Materia Medica’s sacramentals, and the Church examines them by the rules Cardinal Lambertini set in 1734 for canonisation: a grave organic disease, incurable, cured suddenly, completely, and for good, without medicine. The Medical Bureau (1883) applies them first, with physicians of any faith admitted.
What Medicine Makes of It
Some 7,000 cures declared, 70 recognised, the last in 2018. François, Sternberg, and Fee (2014) reviewed the 25 of 1947–76 and found the cures real, the diseases often remitting ones, and the cases unexplained with the records as they stand. Spontaneous regression of cancer runs at perhaps one in 60,000 to 100,000 (Everson and Cole, 1966), and the Bureau has recognised few. The pilgrimage, the baths, and the expectation are what the placebo literature describes, and most who improve are not declared cured. The water is ordinary.
The Evidence
- Since 1858 some 7,000 cures have been declared at the Medical Bureau (founded 1883) and 70 recognised by the Church as miraculous, the last in 2018; the Bureau applies the criteria set out by Cardinal Lambertini, later Benedict XIV, in 1734: a grave, organic, incurable disease, cured suddenly, completely, and permanently, without treatment.
- François, Sternberg, and Fee (2014) reviewed the 25 cures recognised between 1947 and 1976 with the Bureau’s records: the cures were real, the diseases often tuberculosis, multiple sclerosis, and other conditions that remit, and the one firm conclusion is that the cases cannot be explained with the records as they stand.
- Spontaneous regression of cancer is documented at perhaps one case in 60,000 to 100,000 (Everson and Cole, 1966, with 176 cases; Challis and Stam, 1990); the Bureau has recognised few cancers, and a cure of a disease that never remits elsewhere has not been established.
- The pilgrimage itself, the journey, the company of the sick, the baths, and the expectation, is what the amulet reading describes under placebo: pain, fatigue, and mobility in multiple sclerosis answer to it, and the Bureau’s own physicians have noted that most who improve are not declared cured.
- The water of the spring has been analysed repeatedly since 1858 and found to be ordinary potable water, without mineral or radioactive distinction; the Church does not claim otherwise.
Where They Part
The Church’s criteria are stricter than most clinical trials and exclude nearly everything; what passes them is unexplained, which is not the same as explained by a miracle or by a mistake. The reading stops where the records stop.
In the Materia Medica
Sources
- François, B., Sternberg, E. M., and Fee, E. (2014). “The Lourdes medical cures revisited.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 69.
- Everson, T. C., and Cole, W. H. (1966). Spontaneous Regression of Cancer. Saunders.
- Harris, R. (1999). Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age. Allen Lane.
Historical and interpretive; not medical advice.