occur in the ordinary experience of physicians. Doctor J. Burney Yeo quite incidentally records two such sudden cases, in an article on a subject remote from Lourdes, in The Nineteenth Century for August, 1888, vol. XXIV, pp. 196-197 — one of blindness and the other of lameness. "A gentleman," says he, "the subject of seri- ous disease, who had shown a tendency to the development of some- what startling subjective symptoms, suddenly declared that he was blind. He was carefully examined by the writer and by an eminent oculist, and although no particular optical defect could be found in his eyes, to all the tests it was possible to apply, he appeared to be blind. A few days afterwards, and without any apparent or sufficient cause or reason for the change, and almost with- out comment, he asked for the Times newspaper, which he pro- ceeded to read in bed without any difficulty!" "The next in- stance," he continues, "is perhaps still more remarkable. A young woman presented herself at a London Hospital, supporting herself on crutches, and declared she was losing the use of her legs. After one or two questions, and after noticing the awkward manner in which the crutches were used, the writer took from her both crutches, and ordered her, in a firm manner, to walk away without them, which she did ! Some years afterwards he was sent for into a dis- tant suburb to see this person's father, having himself quite forgotten the preceding incident, when this same young woman came for- ward and reminded him that he 'had cured her of lameness' many years ago! Now, although no curative agency whatever, in the ordinary sense, was introduced or applied, in either of these in- stances, yet one of them might have said, 'whereas I was blind, now I see,' and the other, 'whereas I was lame, now I walk.'" Pro- fessor Charles (or George?) Buchanan, "a distinguished Professor of Surgery in Glasgow" "visited Lourdes in the autumn of 1883, and was much interested in the undoubted benefit that some of the pilgrims received." He published some notes in the Lancet of June 25, 1885, from which Doctor A. T. Myers and F. W. H. Myers extract the following account of an instantaneous cure in which he was an actor {Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. IX, 1893-1894, pp. 191 ff.). "With regard," he writes, "to persons who have been lame and decrepit and known as such to their friends, the fact of their leaving their crutches and walking away without help does seem astonishing and miraculous, and it is cases such as these which make the greatest impression." "I believe that the simple visit to the grotto by persons who believe in it, and the whole surroundings of the place, might have such an effect on the mind that a sudden change in the nerve condition might result in immedi-
282 NOTES TO LECTURE III