304 MY LIFE [Chap. 



got pretty well ; the other remained so imperfect that with it 

 alone he could not distinguish a man from any other similar- 

 sized object at a few paces distance, and he was incapable of 

 doing his former work as a stone mason. This continued for 

 twenty years. At the time of his cure he was under Dr. 

 Dozens* care, as his eyes were then getting worse. He 

 washed, and was completely cured in the course of one day 

 Dr. Dozens met him in the street and would not believe he 

 was cured, and tested him by writing with a pencil on a piece 

 of paper that he had an incurable amaurosis of the right eye, 

 and when he read these words to the doctor, the latter was 

 dumfoundered, for Dr. Dozens was a materialist, and dis- 

 believed in all things preternatural at that time. This case 

 is also vouched for by Dr. Vergez, of Bareges. 



"M. Lacassogne, now of 6, Rue du Chai des Varine, 

 Bordeaux, formerly of Toulouse, had a son who had for three 

 years been unable to swallow a morsel of solid food. Both 

 the doctors of Toulouse told me of this case, but Dr. Nogu^s 

 was his principal medical attendant. Dr. Nogues is still an 

 unbeliever, but he told me he felt bound in justice to declare 

 that his patient was a good obedient child of a sanguine tem- 

 perament, and not at all nervous or hysterical. When wasting 

 to the extreme from imperfect nutrition, he was instantaneously 

 cured in the fountain, and has eaten freely solid food ever since. 

 His father was a Voltairean, and was converted by this fact 

 in his family. 



" Finally, Dr. Rogues, of Toulouse, told me that his own 

 daughter had recently had a most remarkable cure, and this 

 was also told me by Dr. Dozens, of Lourdes. Dr. Rogues 

 is short-sighted, his sons are short-sighted, and his father is 

 short-sighted. No wonder, then, that his daughter was also 

 short-sighted. It was a case of heredity — congenital short- 

 sightedness. The mother was exceedingly desirous as her 

 daughter grew up that she might be able to see like ordinary 

 people, and took her to Lourdes, when, in an instant^ she 

 became ordinarily long-sighted. On her return her father 

 would not believe till he had tested her himself by making 

 her read to him at distances which would have been quite 



