A letter, which we take at random from our documents, presents better than we could the attitude of the _savants_ of the neighborhood regarding the wonders worked by the Massabielle water. This letter, written by an eminent physician of that region, Dr. Lary, who had no faith whatever in the miraculous explanations of the cures, was addressed by him to a member of the faculty:
"I hasten, my dear sir, to send you the details which you ask of me in regard to the case of the woman Galop of our commune.
"This woman, in consequence of rheumatism in the left hand, had lost the power of holding anything with it. Hence, if she wished to wash or carry a glass with this hand, she was very apt to drop it, and she was obliged to give up drawing water from the well, because this hand was unable to hold the rope. For more than eight months she had not made her bed and had not spun a single skein of thread.
"Now, after a single journey to Lourdes, where she made use of the water internally and externally, she spins with ease, _makes her bed, draws water, washes and carries the glasses and dishes, and, in short, uses this hand as well as the other_.
"The movements of the left hand are not yet _quite_ as free as before the illness, but 90 per cent. of the power that had been lost before the use of the water from the grotto at Lourdes has been restored. The woman proposes, however, to go again to the grotto. I shall ask her to pass your way that you may see her, and convince yourself of all that I have said.
"You will find, in examining her case, an incomplete anchylosis of the lower joint of the forefinger. If the repeated use of the water of the grotto destroys this morbid condition, it will be an additional proof of its alkaline properties.[10]
"In conclusion, I beg you to believe me yours very faithfully,
This explanation, once admitted and considered as certain in advance, the doctors were less unwilling to accept the cures worked by the water of the grotto; and from this period they set to work to generalize their thesis, and to apply it almost without any distinction to all cases, even to those which were marked by the most amazing rapidity, which could by no means be ascribed to the ordinary action of mineral waters. The learned personages of the place got out of this difficulty by attributing to the water of the grotto extremely powerful properties, such as had been previously unknown. It mattered little that they discarded all the laws of nature in their theories, provided that heaven got no profit thence. They willingly admitted the preternatural in order to get rid of the supernatural.