Jacalyn Duffin’s book is a superb example of the recent interest of medical historians in Catholic mysticism. Ruth Harris, in her famous „Lourdes“ in which she highlights the significant role of the medical experts from the „Bureau des constatations médicales“ 1, led the way for a medical analysis of miraculous healings. Following her example, historians of medicine became interested in the connections (and also conflicts) between medical expertise and religious belief in particular. They have found a remarkable documentation in the Vatican archives which are open as far as 1939. The „Medicine and Religion“ Conference, held in Rome last June on the initiative of the Ecole française de Rome and the Università Roma Tre, exemplifies the dynamism of this new research field.2

The originality of Jacalyn Duffin’s work stems primarily from the personal experience which led to her historical inquiry in the Vatican archives. As a trained hematologist, she was personally involved in the medical expertise of a miraculous healing, which led to the canonization of the Canadian Marguerite d’Youville. Struck by the crucial role of medical experts in canonization processes, she embarked on an investigation of 1,409 miracles cited in beatification and canonization causes. While mystical studies have, up to now, focused mostly on singular cases, Duffin, with her quantitative analysis of miracles, opens up a broader understanding of mystical phenomena in the Modern period.

Jacalyn Duffin introduces us to the richness of the medical documentation coming from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. The difficulty of access to the archives of this Congregation incited the author to concentrate on the positiones (depositions) available at the Vatican Secret Archives and at the Vatican Library. In spite of this restriction, her survey is wide ranging. Duffin’s „collection“ of miracles covers „a third to a half of the total number of files on miracles“ kept at the Vatican Secret Archives (p. 193). Two main criteria guided her choice. First, she wanted each beatification and canonization process to be illustrated by at least one miracle. Second, she chose to concentrate on the final miracles that proved to be decisive for the success of a cause.

In this lively written essay, which is full of amusing anecdotes and abundantly illustrated with iconographic representations and statistical tables, Duffin composes a „drama of the cure“ in five acts (p. 9). In an introductory chapter, she presents the history of the canonization process, focusing on the impact of the Tridentine Reform on the scientific investigation of miracles. Her three central chapters present the main protagonists of this drama: „the Hippocratic triad of patient, illness and doctor“ (p. 9). The last chapter, which examines the interactions between these leading actors, provides innovative perspectives on the experience of healing.

The first chapter underlines the Tridentine Reform input into the standardization and scientification of the investigation of miracles. Duffin starts her survey with the creation of the Congregation of Rites (today known as the Congregation for the Causes of Saints) by Pope Sixtus V in 1588. From this time on, the rules for beatification and canonization processes were strictly codified and the documentation collected was carefully preserved. The author correctly stresses the major role played by Prospero Lambertini, future Benedict XIV, author of the reference book on the subject: „De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione“ (1734-1738). Her emphasis on the contribution of physicians, such as Paolo Zacchia, the founder of forensic medicine, is of particular interest. Duffin’s illuminating comparison between the Congregation of Rites and the Inquisition procedures highlights the Counter Reformation’s attention to evidence and credible witnesses. Physicians became guarantors of the objectivity of the testimony and medical miracles were progressively regarded as the only verifiable miracles.

The next three chapters are more descriptive. Placing herself in the perspective of a „medical history ‚from below‘“ (p. 38), Duffin firstly pays attention to the patients and their connections with the saints they invoked. Her statistical analysis reveals the prevalence of geographic connections: persons who were miraculously healed and saints often come from the same country or even the same place. It also brings to light the importance of the socioeconomic status of the person who was miraculously healed. The predominance, up to the end of the nineteenth century, of elite persons suggests that educational and economic issues are at stake in the official recognition of a miracle. Duffin’s evocation of children who were healed – which constitute almost one fourth of the overall group – is particularly moving. Chapter three concentrates on the diagnoses made by physicians in the course of the modern period. Miracle files form an important source of information on the history of medical diagnosis. The case of tuberculosis, which represents a common diagnosis throughout the period she looks at, illustrates the variation in the medical apprehension of disease. The diagnosis, which was rather imprecise in the first files, becomes progressively more precise as the disease is more clearly defined and new medical devices, like the stethoscope, are invented. The tuberculosis diagnosis finally disappears after 1950, when cures have been found. The fourth chapter highlights the centrality of medical expertise and the emergence, in the Catholic Church, of a culture of competence characterized by a resort to up-to-date science and technology, and also by the primacy of scientific authority over religious adherence.

In her last chapter, Jacalyn Duffin brings back to centre stage the „drama of the cure“, concentrating on four crucial moments: the act of invocation, the experience of healing itself, the official recognition of the miracle and the thanksgiving. Her analysis of the context of healing is extremely stimulating. Duffin’s historical journey from incubation to dreams and visions draws attention to the subjectivity of the healing experience which, in some ways, slips out of the physician’s hands. It is particularly striking to notice, in the course of the book, the increasing adherence of both physicians and theologians to an organicist investigation of the miracle. The nineteenth-century shift from a symptomatic to an organic definition of disease is crucial. The disappearance of miraculous healings of hysteria is highly significant in this respect. By contrast, the contemporary claim of the healed person to subjectivity invites an acknowledgement of psychological investigation.3 Duffin rightly stresses the twentieth-century emphasis on dreams in miracles files and the „cultural impact of Sigmund Freud“ (p. 170). This confrontation between scientific objectivity and the subjectivity of personal experience, between organic evidence and the unfathomable psyche, is particularly stimulating and invites new historical inquiries on scientific expertise at ecclesiastical courts in the contemporary period.

Notes:
1 Ruth Harris, Lourdes. Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, New York 1999.
2 „Professions médicales et pratiques de santé du Moyen Âge à l’époque contemporaine – Medicina e Religione: Collaborazione, competizione, conflitto“, École française de Rome – Roma Tre, Rome, June 17-18, 2010.
3 A similar evolution can be noticed in the case of apparitions: Agnès Desmazières, Psychology against Medicine? Mysticism in the Light of Scientific Apologetics, forthcoming in: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire/Belgisch tijdschrift voor philologie en geschiedenis, 2011.