Healing of Sister Maximilien

A 43-year-old nun, ill for 15 years and totally bedfast for 5, due to a hydatid cyst of the liver with phlebitis of the left leg. She arrived at Lourdes on 20 May 1901 and was taken forthwith to the Baths. A few minutes later she came out walking—and cured. The swellings of her abdomen and leg had vanished. Dr Rampal, her doctor, wrote: "I am bound to say in all sincerity, that Sister Maximilien returned from Lourdes completely cured." The Bishop of Marseille declared it miraculous and attributable to Our Lady of Lourdes on 5 February 1908.

The Lourdes Medical Bureau gathered documentation; the International Medical Committee (C.M.I.L.) affirmed the cure was inexplicable in the current state of medical knowledge. The Bishop of Marseille recognized it on 5 February 1908. Hydatid cysts require surgical removal. Spontaneous resolution with vanished swellings is not a standard outcome.