Healing of Madeleine Rizan

Madeleine Rizan had been bedridden for over 20 years with left-sided paralysis from cholera in 1832. She had bedsores and trophic disturbances. Her doctors had abandoned hope. In September 1858 she received Extreme Unction. On 17 October, when her daughter brought Lourdes water, she drank a few sips and applied some to her face and body. Suddenly the illness vanished—her strength returned, her skin regained its normal appearance. The woman dying the evening before now felt she would live again. The Bishop of Tarbes officially recognized the cure as miraculous on 18 January 1862.

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 Tarbes recognized it on 18 January 1862. Hemiplegia from stroke or nerve damage is typically permanent. Complete recovery is not a known outcome.