Louise Lateau of Bois d'Haine : her life, her ecstasies, and her stigmata, a medical study / by F. Lefebvre ; translated from the French ; edited by J. Spencer Northcote.

Lefebvre, Ferdinand J. M., 1821-1902.

Date:: 1873

Credit: Louise Lateau of Bois d'Haine : her life, her ecstasies, and her stigmata, a medical study / by F. Lefebvre ; translated from the French ; edited by J. Spencer Northcote. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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$warmed, and entirely disap]oeared as soon as the mild spring weather came. During four months nothing unusual occurred, and menstru- ation continued regularly; but afterwards it was suppressed, when every day, or every second day, sometimes every eighth day, a has- morrhage came on, drop by drox3, through the skin of the fingers of the right hand. After wiping away the blood, it was impossible to distinguish the orifices from which it had proceeded. Later on, when blood had flowed from the fingers duiing the morning, the girl was seized in the afternoon T\ith giddiness, and her face was much flushed. The region of the lar3rax swelled, and a hysterical sufib- cation came on. Soon afterwards blood flowed from several places at the back of the neck, and almost immediately the giddiness, the flusliing, the swelling of the larynx, and the feehug of suffocation disappeared. Another time, the right hj^DOchondriac region swelled and the girl suflered great j)aiu, wMch was relieved by a plaster. All these symptoms diminished after bleeding from the feet, and the administration of emmeiiagogues with anti-hysterical baths; but menstruation remained suppressed, and fresh morbid symptoms ap- peared; the face flushed suddenly; copious bleeding of the nose oc- ciu'red, and had not ceased when the region of the larynx began to swell. A sweat of blood came out on the back of the neck, which returned to its natural size; but the same da}^ the sweat of blood showed itself on the right arm and on the calf of the right leg. In the evening, spasms attacked the entire right side of her body; her intellectual faculties remained, however, unaflected. The symx?- toms, which continued in all their intensity until ten at night, were succeeded by paralysis, with loss of power of the right arm, and con- traction of the leg on the same side. The left eye was affected by amaurosis; this was the only affected part of the left side. The epigastrium remained swollen. A month later, the left eye swelled suddenly, and tears of blood flowed from it; the amaurosis con- tinued nevertheless. The sldn of the nose was then the seat of a sweat of blood, wliicli was succeeded by an epistaxis, and then by spitting blood; next, blood streamed from the finger nails on the right hand, and from the inside of the right arm. A swelling came on at the same time in the right arm, but disappeared without any sweat of blood. Two days afterwards the sick giid had a sudden fright, wluch was followed by a shght hasmorrhage from the left eye, and from the skin of the light hand and arm.'^ Case 3. A woman, forty-five years of age, and of a strong consti- tution, had frequent exterior haemorrhages, which caused great ner- vous irritabihty. In 1851, a sweat of blood appeared on her forehead, ' Case found by Van Swieten amongst Boerhaave's papers.$