“In virtue of what mechanism,” he asks, “are blisters first produced, and bleeding afterwards? We have established the genesis of stigmatic angiomata.[268] The attention has given place to pain, and pain to repeated touchings; from this proceeds the congestion which has brought on the arrest of the blood in the capillaries, and, as a consequence, their enlargement. Then comes the rush of blood, giving place to congestive motions, determined by a hemorrhagic diathesis, and the phenomena disclose themselves in all their simplicity; the leucocytes[269] will pass across the capillaries, will discharge themselves under the skin, and the blister is the result. The accumulation of blood continuing in proportion to the enlargement of the capillaries, the fleshly tegument will end by bursting; then the blood itself, whether by traversing the channels created by the previous passage of the leucocytes, or by the rupture of the vessels, the likelihood of which can be sustained, ends by an external eruption, and the hemorrhage follows.”
But M. Warlomont goes still farther. He says that not only are stigmata and ecstasies capable of explanation when taken apart from one another, but that by their union they constitute what in pathology is called aggregate of symptoms. According to this, stigmata and ecstasies would constitute an altogether unique morbid state, to which the professor gives the following name and definition: “Stigmatic neuropathy is a nervous disease, having its seat in the base of the medulla oblongata, the first stage of which consists in the paralysis of the vaso-motor centre, and the second in its excitation.” Presented in this way, the report of the distinguished member of the Academy was not only a report, but a veritable original work. Thus this book, wherein the author had joined loyalty of procedure to elegance of style and deep erudition, produced a profound sensation. The theory which he advances might well leave certain doubts with the reader relative to the solidity of the bases on which it leans, but by its method it exercised a real fascination on the mind. M. Warlomont’s conclusions were, as far as the interpretation of the facts went, diametrically opposed to those of the book which M. Lefebvre had published several years before, and it was not without a very great curiosity that the public awaited the reply of the latter.
The reply was not long in coming. M. Lefebvre’s discourse occupied, so to say, exclusively the sessions of May 29 and June 26. After having rendered due homage to the courtesy and science of the distinguished reader of the report, the Louvain professor hesitated not to sustain the first conclusions advanced in his book, and to demonstrate the small foundation of the theory of his adversary on this question. It is to be regretted that the limits at my disposal do not allow me to enter into all the physiological details and pathological considerations on which M. Lefebvre builds his conclusions. I regret it the more because the brilliant words of the orator exercise a very special impression by the clearness of their exposition, the logic of their reasoning, and the exquisite charm which they give to even the driest questions.
First, as to the stigmatic hemorrhages, we cannot be astonished, after having followed the proofs which the learned orator gives us, to find him lay down the following conclusions:
“1. M. Warlomont is driven to admit a single vaso-motor centre; the most recent researches are against this localization: the vaso-motor centres are several and disseminated.
“2. The distinguished reader of the report constructs his doctrine of the action of the imagination on a series of hypotheses.
“The two chief ones are: that the imagination has the power, every Friday morning, of completely paralyzing the vaso-motor centre and the vaso-constrictor nerves; and after midday, by a contradictory action, to excite violently this centre, and consequently to close up the vaso-constrictors—pure suppositions which have not only not been demonstrated by the author, but which seem to me absolutely anti-physiological.
“3. Even admitting these hypotheses as well founded, it is an established fact that the complete paralysis of the vaso-motor centres and of the vaso-constrictor nerves is never followed by bleeding on the surface of the skin; the experience of all physiologists agrees on this point.
“4. This experience proves, on the contrary, that in such cases there are sometimes produced suffusions of blood in the mucous membranes; such suffusions never show themselves in Louise Lateau.
“5. A series of hypotheses still more complicated than those laid down as premises by the distinguished reader of the report might be conceded—to wit, the paralysis of the arteries and the simultaneous constriction of the veins. Experiment again proves that even under these conditions bleeding on the surface of the skin is not produced.