Page:Medicine and the church; being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick (IA medicinechurchbe00rhodiala).pdf/43

 in pagan temples, and we have already seen that in medieval times all such learning was the monopoly of the monks. Healing by means of influence on the mind of the patient is no newer a branch of the art than surgery or treatment by drugs. History abounds with instances of cures effected at shrines by means of relics, and by saints. Of all modern pilgrimage shrines the one in the Pyrenees is by far the most famous. That cures actually take place at the Grotto of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception at Lourdes is undeniable. The cases have been medically diagnosed and the certificates may be examined in the Record Office at Lourdes where such documents are preserved. Whether such cures differ in character from other cures by what is termed suggestion is an open question. In fairness to those who believe them to be due to the direct intervention of the Almighty it is perhaps only right to give here the opinion of Mr. Butlin, the President of the Royal College of Surgeons, who recently said:

'When such cures take place in the presence of vast masses of people, although it may be possible to explain all the steps through which the emotion has produced the "cure," how can we be surprised that the people