In 2013 it is presided over by Nicolas Brouwet [fr], Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, and François-Bernard Michel [fr], also president of the Académie Nationale de Médecine The term Medical Bureau is also used by the International Medical Association of Lourdes to refer to a special conference of its members, which may be called to investigate reports of inexplicable healing.
After this time, reports of apparently miraculous cures began to accumulate, prompting calls for the Roman Catholic Church to recognise these events as miracles.
The earliest investigations of these cases were carried out by an Episcopal Commission of Inquiry led by Canon Germain Baradère and reporting directly to Mgr Laurence, bishop of Tarbes.
The commission's earliest work was conducted without medical consultation, with only clerical opinion being sought as to the nature of the cures.
[1] In 1859, Professor Henri Vergez from the Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier was appointed medical consultant to the Episcopal Commission of Inquiry.
[1] In 1883 a body called the Bureau des Constatations Médicales was established by doctors affiliated with the sanctuary.
Its first titular head was the nobleman Baron Dunot de Saint-Maclou, and the Bureau was housed at the residence of the Garaison Fathers in Lourdes.
[2] Dunot de Saint-Maclou died in 1891 and was succeeded by Dr. Gustave Boissarie who headed the Medical Bureau until 1914, and met with the French author Émile Zola when he visited Lourdes in August 1892.
Boissarie wrote a celebrated book, L'Histoire Médicale de Lourdes in 1891, which was praised by Pope Leo XIII.
Boissarie moved the offices of the Bureau to accommodation beneath the right ramp of the Upper Basilica, where he met with people who claimed to have been cured.
[3] In 1905, Pope Pius X decreed that claims of miraculous cures at Lourdes should "submit to a proper process", in other words, to be rigorously investigated.
[5] The bureau has a modest office within the Domain (the large area of consecrated ground surrounding the shrine and owned by the Church), on the second floor of the building known as the Accueil Jean Paul II.
Members are given (and invited to wear) a small but distinctive badge displaying a red cross on a white background surmounted by the word Credo ("I believe").
The Lourdes Medical Bureau publishes its own quarterly journal, Fons Vitae ("Source of Life") which is circulated to members.
It is recognised that, in rare cases, even advanced malignant disease or severe infection may spontaneously resolve, in a full remission.
The bishop wishes to have a new approach to cures in Lourdes, especially concerning the different stages of recognising them: “For the Church, as well as for the believer, a pilgrimage to Mary is more than a journey to a miracle.
It is a journey of love, of prayer and of the suffering community.”[citation needed] Occasionally cases are dismissed by the Medical Bureau but still attain a level of fame and notoriety.
Visited Lourdes: After his healing, from 9 to 15 May 1878 Pieter De Rudder was a farm labourer, born Jabbeke July 2, 1822, died March 22, 1898.
Symptoms, which included headache, impaired speech and vision, and partial right-side paralysis began without warning in February 1964.
While on pilgrimage to Lourdes in April 1970, he felt a sudden warmth from head to toe, his vision returned, and he was able to walk unaided.
On returning to Italy, her tumour rapidly regressed until no remaining evidence existed, although it left her tibia angulated, which required an operation (osteotomy) to correct.
Italian-American paediatrician Dr. Alessandro ("Sandro") di Franciscis (born Naples, 1955) is the thirteenth doctor to head [5] the Lourdes Medical Bureau,[9] and the first non-Frenchman in that position.
In fact, the American doctors said, Perrin’s symptoms are classic signs of hysteria; in the absence of appropriate medical tests, that was a much more probable diagnosis.
If Serge Perrin’s case is representative, there are good reasons to be distrustful of officially declared miraculous cures at Lourdes.
"[10]A study by former Emeritus Professor Bernard Francis et al in Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences looked at the evidence of the cures.
It found that while there were some cases associated with hysteria and mental disorders, there were others that were clearly anatomical abnormalities visible to the eye, including tumours and opens wounds.