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
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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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    without any change. Suddenly she started up, knelt ux^on her bed, ox)ened her eyes, and raising them to heaven, began to sx^eak in exalted terms of God, of the angels, and of the joys of Paradise. After remaining thus kneeling for thirteen hours, she sank down and awoke. She fell into the same state on several different occasions; first, with an interval of fifteen days, and then of eight days. The author of this observation left it unfinished.^^ I susjDected that tliis was a case of hj^steria, with a com];)lication of ecstatic phe- nomena.^° I made inquiries at the sx>ot; and tliis is the information I obtained: The girl was deeply attached to a young man whose family were in good circumstances. A project of marriage, which appeared per- fectly settled, was abruptty broken off, and this caused her a severe moral shock. It was after tliis grievous decejition that hysterical attacks aj)- peared, soon afterwards com]Dlicated by hallucinations. These x)henomeua, which excited considerable attention in the neighbourhood, were never considered by those who observed them ■\vith any care, and especially by the clergy, as bordering in any degree on the sux)ernatural. I attended a young person, suffering from hj^steria, who presented most remarkable ecstatic symx)toms. During her attacks, which occurred at irregular intervals, she was motionless in her bed; her ej^es raised towards heaven and fixed, she ax)peared insensible to everj^thiug around her. When subjected to the action of magnetism, she jDresented strange i)henomena of lucidity; she discriminated the diseases of the XDcrsons Avith whom she was X)laced in connection, dic- tating ver}'- detailed ]3rescrix)tions. She described the interior of her own organs, into which her e^'e j^enetrated as though they had been of crj^stal.^^ Different signs, which it would be tedious, and moreover useless, to relate here, had led me to beheve that this ajpparatus of extraor- dinary x)henomena was hiding a ver}^ skilfully-managed deception ; but the convictions of the x)ersons about her were so strong that I required a x'l'oof callable of ox)ening the most prejudiced eyes. I ^^ Gazette medic, de Paris, No. for February 1852. ^^ See VEtude de Vllysterie a la Forme extatique, p. 235. 51 In the Edinburr/h Review, No. 278, for October 1872, in an article ' On the Progi-ess of Surgery and Medicine,' we read that ' a new instru- ment has only just been discoyered (the diaphonoscope) by which the in- ternal organs are made visible, through the walls of the abdomen, by means of very powerful lights, which render the body to a certain degree trans- loarent, and the outlines of the abdominal viscera are thereby mapped out to the- eye.'—Translator.