“I. The state of Louise Lateau is a complex pathological state, characterized by the following facts:
“1. Anæmia and weakness of constitution, arising from privations endured since childhood.
“2. Nervous exaltation produced by anæmia and directed in a determined sense by the education and religious tendencies of Louise.
“3. Ecstasies constituting the supreme degree of this exaltation.
“4. Bleeding, having for its starting point anæmia and exaltation of the vaso-motor nervous system.
“5. Relative abstinence, considerably exaggerated by the sick girl, conformably to what is observed among many persons who suffer from nervous disorders.
“II. This state offers nothing contrary to the laws of pathological physiology; it is consequently useless to go outside of that in search of explanation.
“III. It has the same characteristics as all the analogous cases related by physicians and historians; mysticism altogether, save cases of jugglery and mystification, ought to enter into the province of pathology, which is vast enough to contain it; and all the phenomena explain themselves perfectly by taking as starting point the principles which I have laid down.”
If we had to advance our own opinion on this important question, we should say that, after the report in which M. Warlomont had treated his subject with so much method and science, there remained few new arguments which could be applied to the physiological theory of the phenomena of mystics. It should be considered, however, no small advantage for the latter physician to feel himself supported by M. Crocq, who had brought to the debates the weight of his profound erudition and vast experience.