ate improvement in cases where there is no real change of structure, but where the malady is a functional imitation of organic disease. Such cases are frequent and familiar to all medical men, and are the most intractable they have to deal with, the disorder being in the imagination and not in the part. ... It is rather a remarka- ble coincidence that on October 2, 1883, within three weeks of my visit to Lourdes, I received a letter from Mrs. F., reminding me that some years before I had performed in her case a cure, instantaneous, and to all appearances miraculous, and which she properly attrib- uted to undoubting faith in my word. It is a very good illustra- tion of the kind of case to which I have been alluding, and of the power of mind over mind, and of the effect of imagination in simulat- ing real disease. Mr. F. called on me in October, 1875, and re- quested me to visit his wife, who had been confined to bed for many months with a painful affection of the spine. When I went into the house I found Mrs. F., a woman of about thirty-one years of age, lying in bed on her left side, and her knees crouched up, that being the position that afforded most relief. She was thin and weak-looking, with a countenance indicative of great suffering. I was informed that for many months she had been in the same con- dition. She was unable to move her limbs, any attempt being at- tended with pain, and practically she was paralytic. She was not able to alter her position in bed without help, and this always gave so much trouble that she would have remained constantly in the same position if the attendants had not insisted on moving her to allow of the bed-clothes being changed and arranged. She had altogether lost appetite, and had become dreadfully emaciated, and only took what was almost forced on her by her husband and friends. She had given up all hope of recovery, but had expressed a strong desire to be visited by me in consequence of something she had heard from her husband in connection with a health lecture he had been present at many years before. When I entered her bedroom something in the way she earnestly looked at me suggested the idea that I might have some influence over her supposing it to be a case of hysterical spine simulating real spine irritation and sympathetic paralysis. The story I got was not that of real disease of spine or cord or limbs, and I at once resolved to act on the sup- position that it was subjective or functional, and not dependent on actual molecular change or disintegration. I went to her bed- side and said suddenly: 'I cannot do you any good unless you allow me to examine your back.' In an instant she moved slightly round, and I examined her spine, running my finger over it at first lightly, then very firmly, without her wincing at all. I then said:
ROMAN CATHOLIC MIRACLES 283
'Get out of bed at once.' She declared she could not move. I said: 'You can move quite well; come out of bed,' and gave her my hand, when, to the surprise of her husband and sister, who looked perfectly thunderstruck, she came out of bed almost with no help at all, and stood alone. I said: 'Walk across the floor now,' and without demur, she walked without assistance, saying: 'I can walk quite well; I knew you would cure me; my pains are gone.' She then went to bed with very little assistance, lay on her back, and declared she was perfectly comfortable. She was given a glass of milk which she took with relish, and I left the house having performed a cure which to the bystanders looked nothing short of a miracle. . For many years I heard nothing of Mrs. F., when on October 2, 1883, I got her letter referred to, and shortly after the patient herself called at my house. In February, 1885, she again called on me. She is at present in fair health, not robust, but cheerful and contented. She says she never altogether re- gained her full strength; but as an evidence that she is not feeble or unable for a good deal of exertion, I may state that she now lives about five miles from my house, and she made her way alone, partly by omnibus, partly by tramway, and the rest on foot." Compare the curiously parallel case, happening half a century earlier, described in note 26 to Lecture IV, on the "Irvingite Gifts."
125. Benson, as cited, p. 24.
126. Bertrin, as cited, p. 280.
127. Pp. 256, 262.
128. P. 280.
129. P. 256.
130. P. 280.
131. P. 262.
132. On the case of Frau Ruchel, see the report in the Deutsch- evangelische Korrespondenz for August 11, 1908. The facts are brought out in the brochure of Doctor Aigner of Munich, Die V/ahrheit iiber eine Wunderheilung in Lourdes.
133. Pp. 197-198.