Please notice that the temperature of the water never rises above fifty degrees, and that seventy-seven are necessary for the cultivation of germs.* Besides, scarcely any contagious diseases come to Lourdes, neither cholera, nor typhus, nor variola, nor measles, nor scarlatina.

We only see certain organic affections here, paralysis, scrofula, tumours, ulcers and abscesses, cancers and phthisis; and the latter cannot be transmitted by the water of the baths.

The old sores which are bathed have nothing to fear, and offer no risk of contagion.

I can assure you that on this point there is even no necessity for the Blessed Virgin to intervene." * The above are Fahrenheit degrees .-- Trans.
"Then, in that case, doctor," rejoined Pierre, "when you were practising, you would have dipped all your patients in icy water--women at no matter what season, rheumatic patients, people suffering from diseases of the heart, consumptives, and so on?
For instance, that unhappy girl, half dead, and covered with sweat--would you have bathed her ?" "Certainly not! There are heroic methods of treatment to which, in practice, one does not dare to have recourse.

An icy bath may undoubtedly kill a consumptive; but do we know, whether, in certain circumstances, it might not save her?
I, who have ended by admitting that a supernatural power is at work here, I willingly admit that some cures must take place under natural conditions, thanks to that immersion in cold water which seems to us idiotic and barbarous.