Marie Bailly and Nobel Laureate Alexis Carrel
Jesus helps us believe by giving us miraculous healings. While the Resurrection is the ultimate miracle, he proclaimed who he was and his power throughout his three-year ministry by instantly healing a multitude of sick. Those miracles helped the witnesses believe. His miracles continue today, and there is no better place to look than Lourdes, France.
Miraculous cure of Marie Bailly
We look first at the 1902 miraculous cure of Marie Bailly. Her case is but one example of an inexplicable instantaneous healing not included in the list of 70 officially recognized miracles. I will discuss this cure and the surrounding circumstances for two reasons. First, it includes a detailed contemporaneous, minute-by-minute, description of her instantaneous cure as recorded by the attending physicians. Second, the healing was also witnessed by an agnostic doctor and researcher, Alexis Carrel, who in 1912 received the Nobel Prize in medicine.
The following summary and quotations relating to the illness and 1902 cure of Marie Bailly are given to us by Dr. Boissaire, the head of the Lourdes Medical Bureau from 1892 to 1914.
Dr. Boissaire tells us:
“Marie Bailly’s cure is one of the most interesting we have witnessed. It is interesting especially from a scientific view-point. It is impossible to come across an investigation done with a surer and a more rigorous method. For the last three years that girl was under treatment at the Lyons and Sainte-Foy Hospitals; eight doctors waited upon her and brought us their testimony. One whose talent and whose impartiality are above suspicion entered the pilgrims’ train, always kept his eye upon that sick girl, and at Lourdes followed her to the hospital, to the grotto, to the baths, everywhere.
“He witnesses her cure, he notices hour by hour, minute by minute, the changes that take place under his eyes. It is a kind of resurrection he describes as a man of science, discarding from his mind and from his pen all comments, marking one by one all the symptoms he observes: that interrupted breathing which gradually becomes regular, that agonizing heart which begins to beat rhythmically, those blue cheeks which assume a rosy color. It is a photograph which brings under our eyes a most touching drama; science alone could thus give with precision all the details of a cure too important to be left to the judgment and the impressions of the vulgar herd.
Her Youth—Her Illness
“Marie Bailly’s father and mother died of pulmonary tuberculosis; one of her brothers died of the same disease; and another has been declared consumptive by an examination board. How could Marie Bailly escape that hereditary influence. ‘Since I was thirteen”, she said, “our family physician, Dr. Terver, advised me to live in the country, and forbade me all mental labor. I had a very disquieting cough, frequent hemorrhages, and endless bronchial troubles during winter. After various alternatives, at seventeen, in February, 1896, I took ill with a double pleurisy with considerable bleeding; I had to go to St. Joseph’s Hospital to be operated on; my condition was so critical that Dr. Chabalier refused to make the puncture, saying that I should not live through the night. They gave me the last Sacraments, and the Sister put around my neck a miraculous medal.
“‘Against all expectations I was better on the morrow and the doctors found me capable of undergoing the operation. By two successive punctures they drew from me three quarts of liquid. I stayed in bed five months; and after leaving the hospital, I improved enough to live an ordinary life for two years.’
“‘My mother’s death, which occurred in December, 1898, called forth new accidents: swollen from my feet to my head, I choked; I was placed again at St. Joseph’s Hospital under Dr. Clement’s treatment. The note at my bed bore nervous dyspnoea; within two months they put seven plasters on me; I took calming drinks, and also phosphate of lime and cacodylate. As I did not recover, they sent me on April 7, 1899, to the Sainte-Foy Hospital.’
“‘Dr. Roy, hospital doctor, wrote on his tablet: pulmonary tuberculosis, laryngitis. He kept on giving me arsenic in pills and through injections, gave me creosote, and tried the reclining chair in the open air. I lost my voice; the disease seems to attack the larynx, and they apply lactic acid to my vocal chords. Dr. Fondet notices an infiltration in the cartilages.’ Hoping some benefit from purer air, Marie Bailly starts for Chabannes, near Le Puy, in May, 1901.
“It was at that time that she felt violent pains in the intestines, and that tuberculosis seemed to spread its ravages in that region. All summer she is in a bad condition; a general decline is noticeable, and she loses flesh and her appetite as well. Her abdomen grows larger, and becomes very sensitive. On November 7, 1901, she returns to the Sainte-Foy Hospital. Dr. Roy diagnoses, tubercular peritonitis. She took to bed in the beginning of December, not to rise again until May 28, 1902, at the Lourdes bath. In January, 1902, she had violent headaches, stiffness of the neck, and of the limbs, and delirium. Dr. Roy recognizes tubercular meningitis; the prognosis seems fatal to him. It appears that on a certain day he even signed her death certificate.
“Towards the end of February she got over the meningitis, but peritonitis kept running its course. In March Dr. Roy sent her back to St. Joseph’s Hospital to be operated on—a last attempt to stop the progress of peritonitis.
“Marie Bailly was placed under treatment of the hospital surgeon, Dr. Goulioud. He examines her and has her auscultated, and his observations are recorded by his assistant. He recalls the previous bad condition; her abdomen is swollen, is sore, and there is no liquid. In the lung a hollow sound on a level with the spine and the right shoulder blade; her temperature was very unsteady; no albumin. Dr. Goulioud diagnoses tubercular peritonitis, and in her critical state the operation should, he thinks, not be performed.
“He turns the sick lady over to Dr. Clement. We heard he made the same diagnosis: tubercular peritonitis. Marie Bailly remained a few days under his care, and was sent back again to Sainte- Foy. She keeps on declining. Her emaciation is extreme, her abdomen very sore, and Dr. Roy considers her doomed. He lets her start for Lourdes with a certificate in which he affirms the existence of tubercular peritonitis
“Up to this, everything seems to justify that diagnosis: the antecedents, the pleurisy, the tubercular pains on the side of the chest, the meningitis, Dr. Goulioud’s statements, as well as the certificate of Dr. Roy, who kept her two years and a half in the hospital wards; the verdict seems unanimous.
The Pilgrimage—The Cure
“‘To what cause must I attribute my going to Lourdes? Doubtless to a secret design of Divine Providence’, so speaks Miss Bailly. ‘Long since I had quit asking for my cure. One day while at the hospital, I heard the doctor say that I had consumption. This grieved me deeply; I was scarcely twenty, and it was hard for me to realize that I was hopelessly doomed. One is resigned to sickness and suffering, as long as there is a little gleam on the horizon; but when the future closes abruptly, it is death and the grave. Still gradually I braced up, and I offered my life as a sacrifice, and awaited the end submissively and resignedly, and I can’t explain how the thought of repairing to Lourdes occurred to me. One night during March, in a moment of bitter suffering, the thought of Lourdes flashed through my mind. I understood that there I should be healed. Notwithstanding the opposition of the members of my family, of nuns even, who strove to put the idea out of my mind, as I was not able to stand the journey, I got myself inscribed, and I started with the pilgrimage. They carried me on a stretcher to the train, where I lay on a mattress completely doubled up—the car compartment being too narrow to let me stretch out.’
“‘The journey was very hard; the pains in my intestines were horrible. I feared I should not reach Lourdes alive. The physician who stayed a long time in my car must have been astonished to see me hold out. He asked if I expected to be cured, if I had faith, adding: ‘All the sick have’. And I thought the Blessed Virgin would heal me, but I said: ‘Let her hasten, for I am going’. During the whole journey I took nothing, not even a spoonful of tea.’
“Here follows the physician’s diary:
“Monday, May 26th. On train.—Girl of twenty-two, pale, emaciated, with drawn features, lying on her back, dressed in black. Her much swollen abdomen attracts attention. There is on the left side a more marked protuberance; there is a more resisting mass; no liquid, a dull sound.
“The abdomen, it appears, contains hard masses separated by a more depressible part; it is the symptom of peritonitis in its last stages. These symptoms, the hereditary and personal antecedents, the diagnosis of such a competent surgeon as Dr. Goulioud, make me pronounce her affected with tubercular peritonitis. I could not reasonably make another diagnosis.
“Pressing on the left side of the abdomen causes much pain; the breathing is rapid and broken; pulse 120, oedema (dropsy) of the legs. At certain moments her body stiffens, yet the patient is calm without any mystic exaltation.
“Tuesday, May 27th. Lourdes.—At two o’clock the patient was taken from the train to the hospital Immaculate Conception ward. She is put to bed and made to rest till morning. The journey made her worse. Vomitings, much severer pains, quicker breathing, pulse 120.
“Wednesday, May 28th. —The rest failed to help the patient. At her request she is put upon a stretcher, and carried to the grotto and bathing place; they don’t bathe her, but merely sponge her chest and abdomen with cold water. At her return to the hospital at ten o’clock a.m., her condition is very critical. Pale, with-drawn features, and very fast breathing. The heart very weak, its pulsations 150 a minute, the face slightly blue. Caffeine injection, hot cloths, ice on the abdomen.
“May 28th, 1:15 P.M.—Very bad state. The patient can scarcely answer the questions put her. She raves. Abdomen very sore, very tight. Irregular pulse, low, scarcely countable, 160; broken breathing 90 a minute, contracted face, very pale, and slightly purple. Nose, ears, extremities cold. Just now arrives Dr. Geoffray, of Rive-de-Gier; he looks at the patient, feels, strikes, and auscultates the heart and the lungs. He tells us that she is dying. As she can take nothing, and wants to return to the grotto, they carry her thither on a stretcher.
“1:50 P.M.—The patient is at the bathing place, motionless, lying on her back, her head thrown backwards, discolored, with a purple hue on the cheek bones, breathing very fast; the protuberance of the abdomen is noticeable through the cover
“She enters the bath. Marie Bailly will now complete the doctor’s diary: ‘In the extremity in which I was, everybody wondered that I wanted to be taken back to the bathing place. Yet I demanded it, and thanks to my nurse’s devotedness, I at last got there, followed by a person who carried my shroud. The carriers thought of praying for my last moments. The doctor declared that moving me would hasten my death, and that after a few steps I should be a corpse.
“‘I could pray no longer, yet I thought of the loving Virgin, and I was convinced that I was dying while being carried out, but that I should return healed. On arriving at the piscina, they would not put me in the water, but simply sponged me. At first I suffered horribly; the ladies insisted on stopping, but they proceeded however, as I begged them to continue. Just then I said interiorly to Our Lady of Lourdes, ‘If you wish it, you can cure me just as well through the ablutions as through the bath.’”
“They sponged her again upon the stretcher. They are afraid to move her; as the water touches her, she experiences unprecedented throes, then suddenly she is calm, she rises: ‘I am cured,’ she said. ‘She’s losing her senses’, interposed the nurse. Meanwhile her cheeks color up, her look becomes lively, and as they take her from the watering place, she chimes in the Magnificat.
“2:20 P. M.—Here we resume the doctor’s recital: Upon leaving the piscina they carry her before the grotto, the stretcher is set on the ground; few people as yet; the religious ceremonies have not begun. The sick girl is in the broad daylight; it is easy to examine her.
“2:30 until 2:40 P. M.—The breathing slackens, and becomes more regular. The look of her face is changing; a very slight rosy hue is spreading over her countenance. She seems to feel better, and she smiles at the nurse bent over her.
“2:55 P. M.—The profile of her body visible under the cover is changing, and the protuberance of the abdomen is lowering. A general improvement becomes evident.
“3:10 P. M.—The hands, the ears, and the nose are warm. Her breathing has slackened to forty a minute; the heart is stronger, more regular, but fast at 140. She tells us that she is feeling better. They make her take some more milk, and there is no more vomiting.
“3:20 P. M.—She rises and looks around her. The cover has sunk over the abdomen. Her limbs move, and she turns her body to the right side. Her face has become calm and rosy.
“3:45 P. M.—The stretcher is brought close to Holy Rosary Church.
“4:15 P. M.—The improvement is marked. The breathing is easy, and the face rosy. She tells us that she is feeling quite well, and that if she dared she could get up. Everybody can tell the change in her. They carry her to the Verification Bureau on a mattress. She leaves in a little cart. The doctor’s statements are inscribed on our registers. Our report tallies with the impressions of our colleagues.
“7:30 P. M.—Examined at the hospital. General aspect excellent; much emaciated face, but calm and rosy; very regular breathing. Her abdomen has now the soft, elastic and depressed wall of a healthy, but very thin girl of twenty. That extremely thin wall allows a very easy and clear exploration of the organs; the aorta beats under the finger; way down on the right side a hard mass going up to the loins. Between one’s hands one can feel a very hard cake which is not sore, as big as the forearm, adhering solidly to the rear wall of the abdomen. That tumor does not move during the movements of breathing.
“8:00 P. M.—The improvement continues; stronger voice; breathing 30, pulse 100, regular and full.
“May 29th, 6:30 A. M.—General condition perfect. She gets up and eats; breathing 18; pulse 88; abdomen absolutely normal. The hard mass noticed in the region of the loins yesterday has well-nigh disappeared. There remains a little tumor which is not painful, deep seated, and very hard.
“Friday, May 30th.—The patient has dressed and walks around. She can climb a staircase. Her strength is rapidly coming back. Almost unassisted she steps into the cars, and travels twenty- four hours seated on the bench of a third class compartment. She is very calm; no mystic excitement; she strives to hide herself from the gaze of the people who surround her. She reenters the Sainte-Foy Hospital.
After the Cure
“Wednesday, June 4th.—Marie Bailly looks like a healthy girl; good appetite; speedy increase in weight, almost a pound. Absolutely flexible abdomen; every tumor gone.
* * * * *
“August 8th.—Leaves the hospital. Is accepted as novice by the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. The doctors since that time took twice or three times a specimen of her blood to make the sero-diagnosis of tuberculosis. That reaction has been positive; which proves that Marie Bailly had tuberculosis.
“Practically she must be considered as cured. It is hard to conceive what that girl was on May 28th at 2:00 p.m. She was a corpse carried to the piscina. For several years people had watched the evolution of her tuberculosis on the lungs, the brain, and the peritoneum. It was not an accidental consumption, but a hereditary one; her father and mother having died of that disease. Ever since she was thirteen, she had been fighting against the grip of that fell destroyer. Her system was broken-down; all the springs were worn—she was dying. The doctors who were in Lourdes then have been pleased to record their impressions on our registers, and we read in our report:
“May 28th, 7 P.M.—We have been deeply amazed to behold the girl who was so ill this morning, sitting on her bed, chatting with the nurses, smilingly answering our questions, and to see the enormous swelling of the abdomen completely gone. The tumors which troubled her melted under our eyes; the breathing and the heart had resumed their normal play. It is a sudden, a marvelous cure, a real resurrection.
“Dr. Geoffray, of Rive de Gier, adds with his own hand:
“‘This medical report which I sign is the plain truth; such a serious trouble has never been cured in a few hours as they came to pass here.
Dr. Geoffray.
Lourdes, May 29, 1902’
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Marie Bailly at the Novitiate of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul
“Marie Bailly has been at the novitiate Rue du Bac, Paris, since November, 1902. We saw her there in the middle of the following February. We should never have recognized our patient of the Lyons pilgrimage. Upon leaving Lourdes, she was cured, but she was still pale, weak and staggering. She wore on her countenance the trace of her long suffering. At Paris I found the girl completely transformed. She had gained thirty-six pounds; from seventy-eight pounds she had increased to one hundred and fourteen pounds. Everything in her looks, and her face breathed life and health. In her eyes one could read the brightness of her soul, the novitiate having added that touch of perfection which is the work of grace. With a very sweet voice she gave slow but clear cut answers, striving to overcome her bashfulness, very chary of details, she waited for my questions.
“The story of her life is summed up in one word: suffering. She had been sick ever since she was thirteen. It is suffering undoubtedly that merited for her the exceptional grace with which she has been favored. Raised in the shadow of Our Lady of Fourvieres, she had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and the Memorare was her prayer of predilection.”
Marie Bailly remained a nun for the rest of her life. She died in 1937 at the age of 58.
Dr. Alexis Carrel
In 1912 Alexis Carrel received the Nobel Prize in medicine. He was one of the attending physicians on the train that took Bailly to Lourdes. He remained with her as she spontaneously healed. Carrel was a firm agnostic and went to Lourdes simply to see close-up the rapid healing of wounds reported at Lourdes. He did not believe in miracles, then or even after the Bailly healing which he personally witnessed. He was convinced that natural forces were responsible for Bailly’s sudden cure and kept returning to Lourdes to understand how this process could work. In 1910 he again witnessed another miraculous healing when he saw the sudden restoration of sight to an 18-month-old boy who was born blind.
Despite witnessing these two miracles Carrel remained an agnostic. Then, two years after Bailly’s death Carrel met a Trappist monk, Alexis Presse. Father Alexis had devoted ten years restoring and reopening abbeys throughout France. In 1939 he started working on an abbey close to Carrel’s summer residence, and it was there that the two met. Father Alexis had devoted years to repairing abbeys, and now he was given the task of repairing Carrel’s soul. Not an easy project, but four years later in 1944 Carrel was on his death bed in Paris. Father Alexis received word and rushed to be by Carrel’s side. There, Carrel was converted to Catholicism and received the final sacraments. He had returned to the faith of his parents and his childhood.
Alexis Carrel, a Nobel laureate witness of the miraculous cure of Marie Bailly at Lourdes in 1902
The tip of the iceberg
There have been literally thousands of cures at Lourdes which can only be described as scientifically and medically inexplicable, but only 70 have been declared miraculous by the Church. Neither the Marie Bailly healing nor the instant restoration of sight to the 18-month-old boy is included in the 70. We don’t know how many cures can be considered ‘miraculous,’ but all it takes is just one to demonstrate the loving hand of God. And we don’t know how many spiritual cures flowed from Lourdes waters. Carrel’s was certainly one; maybe yours or that of one of your loved ones will be another.
Jesus told some of the Jews that even though they heard him and saw his works, they still wouldn’t believe he was the Messiah, and they kept asking for more proof. Jesus responded by telling them that “You refuse to believe because you are not my sheep.” John 10:26. I wonder how many good people refuse to believe because, quite simply, they don’t want to. They are not his sheep.
Some websites and references
- Heaven’s Recent Wonders or The Work of Lourdes from the French of Dr. Boissarie, Authorized translation by Rev. C. Van der Donckt, (FR. Pustet & Co, New York and Cincinnati, 1909), pp 93 – 109.
- John 10:26
- Two Lourdes Miracles and a Nobel Laureate: What Really Happened? by Stanley L. Jaki. (The author is the winner of the 1987 Templeton Prize. The following is the annual Joseph M. Gambescia lecture given at the conclusion of the 19th World Congress of FIAMC and the 67th Annual Meeting of the Catholic Medical Association, September 13, 1998.) A brief description of the Marie Bailly cure and further elaboration of the career and conversion of Alexis Carrel.
- Miraculous Healings
Footnotes and Attributions
Photograph of Dr Alexis Carrel retrieved from the Miracle of Lourdes website.
Last modified September 6, 2019