In 1868, Pierre de Rudder, of Jabbeke, Belgium, broke his leg when he fell from a tree. Large pieces of broken bone had to be taken from the wound. The missing bone made it impossible to set the two pieces of the broken leg back together. The leg was held together only by muscle and skin. Doctors recommended amputation, but de Rudder would not consent. After eight years of tolerating this painful condition, he went to Oostacker, Belgium, home to a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. Before he went, he saw Dr. van Hoestenberghe in Jabbeke. The doctor found an open wound at the place of the break, and he could see that the two pieces of broken bone were separated by a space of three centimeters. De Rudder made the trip to Oostacker in great pain, his wound oozing pus and blood. Three men had to carry him off the train. When he arrived at the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, by aid of crutches, he began to pray. In the midst of the prayer, he was overcome by a strange feeling. He stood up without his crutches and began to walk. The broken leg bone had healed (Rogo 1982, pp. 293–294).
When de Rudder returned to Jabbeke, Dr. van Hoestenberghe examined him and was astonished to see the transformation. The doctor then wrote to the medical bureau in Lourdes: “Pierre is undoubtedly cured. I have seen him many times during the last eight years, and my medical knowledge tells me that such a cure is absolutely inexplicable. Again, he has been cured completely, suddenly, and instantaneously, without any period of convalescence. Not only have the bones been suddenly united, but a portion of bone would seem to have been actually created to take the place of those fragments I myself have seen come out of the wound” (Rogo 1982, p. 294).
In 1898, de Rudder died, and in 1900 Dr. van Hoestenberghe got permission to exhume the corpse and conduct an autopsy. His studies were documented with photographs. Rogo (1982, p. 294) states: “These photos clearly show that the two parts of de Rudder’s leg bone had been fused together by a new piece of healthy bone over an inch long that had formed, apparently instantaneously, over its broken ends. Such growth or regeneration of bone is medically unprecedented. . . . Today de Rudder’s leg bones are preserved at the University of Louvain in Belgium.”
Dr. Prosper Gustave Boissarie, a doctor with the Bureau of Medical Authentication (Bureau de Constatations Médicales, or BCM), tells of the case of Joachime Dehant. She had on her leg “a sore a foot long by six inches wide, reaching to the bone and attended by gangrene, and which had lasted twelve years” (Boissarie 1933, p. 3). The sore was the result of cholera and typhus. Dehant, who was 29 years of age, weighed only 60 pounds.
Dehant, who lived in Belgium, was sent to Lourdes at the request of the Countess of Limminghe. Dehant was so sure she would be cured, she wanted to buy a shoe and stocking for her injured leg. But Dehant stated, “There was no means of taking the measurement of my sore leg and foot. A large sore about a foot long from the ankle to the knee covered the leg, and the foot, which was all turned around, was thinner and smaller than the other. I had to be content with the measurement of the other foot” (Boissarie 1933, p. 3).
Joachime Dehant set out from Belgium on September 10. The journey by train was painful, not only for Dehant but for her traveling companions. Her sore was constantly oozing blood and pus, accompanied by a horrible smell. From time to time she changed her bandages, each time removing pieces of dead flesh. She reached Lourdes on September 13, and was taken to the bathing place. Before she went, she once more changed her bandages: “This task required more than an hour. I removed pieces of decayed bone and gangrenous flesh, which I left on the floor” (Boissarie 1933, p. 4). Her first bath did not result in a cure. The next morning, she again went to the bathing place and remained in the water for 27 minutes. When she came out, her companion, Léonie Dorval, removed the bandages and said: “Joachime, there is no longer any sore; you are cured!” Joachime replied, “Blessed be Our Lady of Lourdes! See how well she knows how to do things! She has not only put new skin on my leg, but she has made new flesh and a calf!” (Boissarie 1933, p. 5) Everyone who had seen Joachime Dehant before her cure was amazed. Dr. Boissarie stated (1933, p. 3) that she came out of the water “radically cured, with skin covering the wound.”
The next day, Joachime bathed again, and another extraordinary transformation took place. Joachime had suffered not only from a large sore but from deformation of her hip, knee, and foot. Describing what happened the day after the cure of Dehant’s sore, Bertrin (1908, pp. 105–106) stated: “Both she and her companion saw her deformed foot straighten itself until it was as straight as the hands on a clock. The leg stretched to its full length, the muscles uncontracted, and the knee resumed its normal shape. In the hip a movement was felt which caused unutterable pain. Joachime swooned, and Léonie thought she was dying. But after a time she regained consciousness and opened her eyes. All was over. The pain had completely gone, and her body which had been deformed so long had become straight and agile.”
Upon returning to Belgium, Joachime Dehant was examined by Dr. Gustave Froidbise, who verified the cure. He also gave testimony that he saw the wound just before Dehant’s departure from Belgium, thus defusing any thought that Dehant had been cured before going to Lourdes (Boissarie 1933, p. 8). Here is the text of the statement he gave after examining Dehant just before her departure from Lourdes: “I, the undersigned, Gustave Froidbise, doctor of medicine, etc., at Ohey, in the province of Namur, Belgium, declare that I have examined Mlle. Joachime Dehant, aged twenty-nine, born at Wanfercée-Baulet, resident at Gesves, and I certify as follows: Dislocation of the hip-joint on the right side. Retraction of the lateral tibial muscles of the right leg which causes club-foot (talipes varus). An ulcer which covers two-thirds of the outer surface of the right leg. Hence my present declaration, Ohey, September
6, 1878. Dr. G. Froidbise” (Bertrin 1908, p. 106). To this document he added the results of his examination of Dehant on the day she returned from Lourdes: “I, the undersigned, doctor of medicine, etc. at Ohey, province of Namur in Belgium, declare that I have examined Mlle. Joachime Dehant, aged twenty-nine, born at Wanfercée-Baulet, and resident at Gesves, and I affirm that the lesions mentioned in the accompanying certificate have completely disappeared. A simple redness shows the place where the ulcer existed.—Dr. G. Froidbise. Gesves, Sep. 19th, 1878” (Bertrin 1908, p. 107). Dr. Henri Vergez, of the faculty of medicine at the University of Montpellier, stated: “The sudden cure of a sore, or rather of a spreading chronic ulcer, in a very decayed constitution, and the spontaneous reduction of dislocation of the hip, are facts quite outside natural explanation” (Bertrin 1908, p. 107).
Some extreme skeptics went so far as to suggest that Dehant had no wound at all. But the testimony of many credible witnesses eliminated this suggestion. Simon Deploige, professor of law at the Catholic University of Louvain, and a physician, Dr. Royer, conducted a careful investigation of the evidence for the wound. Dr. Boissarie (1933, pp. 8–9) reviewed their procedures: “Taking Dr. Froidebise’s certificate of September 6th as a starting point, they followed the history of this ulcer, so to speak, from hour to hour, up to the time of its disappearance. They questioned . . . : 1st. Joachime Dehant’s neighbors who saw the ulcer immediately before the departure for Lourdes; 2nd. The fellow travelers on the journey; 3rd. The managers of the hotel where Joachime stopped at Lourdes. Not one of these witnesses questioned was related to the cured girl. . . . All the witnesses questioned were interviewed in their homes without preliminary notice and without having had any opportunity of collusion among them. All read over their depositions and certified their being a faithful and exact account.”