'Purgatory on Earth': An Account of Breast Cancer from Nineteenth-Century France

Social History of Medicine

Volumn 11, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 381-402

  Taylor, Therese ^a  

^a CHARLES STURT UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

Breast cancer; Lourdes; Pain; Saint Th r se of Lisieux; Terminal illness

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; ATTITUDE TO DEATH; BREAST TUMOR; FEMALE; FRANCE; HISTORY; HUMAN; PUBLICATION; RELIGION; WOMEN'S HEALTH;

ATTITUDE TO DEATH; BREAST NEOPLASMS; CATHOLICISM; FEMALE; FRANCE; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HUMANS; MANUSCRIPTS; RELIGION AND MEDICINE; WOMEN'S HEALTH;

EID: 0032236139     PISSN: 0951631X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/shm/11.3.381     Document Type: Article

References (121)

1. A minor proportion of the Lisieux hagiography is actually directed at Zélie. She has been included in portraits of her revered family, and a contemporary French biography, Robert Cadéot, Zélie Martin. 'Mère Incomparable' de Sainte Thérèse de l'Enfant-Jésus (Paris, 1990) gives a general review of her life.
2. See Monica Furlong, Thérèse of Lisieux (London, 1987).
3. To Isidore Guérin, 12 November 1863, no 3. Zélie Martin, Correspondance familiale, 1863-1877 (Lisieux, 1958), hereafter, CF.
4. To Céline Guérin, 5 January 1877, no 181, CF, p. 343.
5. To Céline Guérin, 29 May 1877, no 203, CF, p. 398.
6. To Isidore and Céline Guérin, 7 June 1877, no 205, CF, p. 402.
7. To Isidore Guérin, 11 June 1877, no 206, CF, p. 403.
8. For an interesting comparison with Zélie Martin's experience, see an account of the death of Sara Coleridge, a nineteenth-century litérateur of the Romantic school. K. T. Meiners, 'Imagining Cancer: Sara Coleridge and the Environment of Illness', Literature and Medicine, 15 (1996) 48-63. Sara Coleridge struggled to align accounts of her illness with the Romantic concept of dwelling in harmony with nature. I am indebted to Hilary Marland for this reference. A further basis for comparison could be found in biographies of Anne of Austria, Queen of France (d. 1666) Like Zélie Martin, Queen Anne had recourse to Catholic notions of penance, as well as notions of dignity, regality, and duty to her subjects.
9. John Wiltshire, Jane Austen and the Body: 'The Picture of Health' (Cambridge, 1992), p. 120.
10. To Isidore Guérin, 23 April 1865, no 13, CF, p.30.
11. To Céline Guérin, 20 October 1876, no 168, CF, p. 309.
12. To Céline Guérin, 17 December 1876, no 177, CF, p. 332.
13. Anne of Austria quoted by Catherine Uxol, 'Histoire du cancer du sein au travers des siècles', (Unpublished thesis, University de Bourgogne, Dijon, 1986), p. 12.
14. Le Docteur H. Rieffel, De quelques points relatifs aux récidives et aux généralisations des cancer du sein chez la femme (Paris, 1890), p. 9.
15. A Velpeau, Traité des maladies du sein et de la région mammaire (Paris, 1858), p. 525.
16. Jacques Le Brun, 'Cancer Serpit. Recherches sur la représentation d dans les biographies spirituelles féminines du XVIIe siècle', Sciences Sociales et Santé, 2 (1984), t II, p. 11.
17. To Céline Guérin, 14 June 1877, no 207, CF, p. 405.
18. To Céline Guérin, 20 October 1876, no 168, CF, p. 309.
19. To Céline Guérin, 8 July 1877, no 212, CF, p. 423.
20. See fig. 31, a graph reproducing cancer statistics from England and Wales, in Daniel de Moulin, A Short History of Breast Cancer (The Hague, 1983), p. 77.
21. Ibid., p. 78. These figures relate to the period 1862-1902.
22. See figures from the cover of Pierre Guillaume, Du désespoir au salut: les tuberculeux aux 19e et 20e siècles (Paris 1986).
23. Ibid, p. 148. These figures relate to 1888-97.
24. Velpeau, Traité des maladies, p. 499.
25. LeBrun, 'Cancer Serpit', pp. 11-12.
26. To Isidore Guérin, 23 April 1865, no 13, CF, p. 30.
27. Velpeau, Traité des maladies, p. 497.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. To Isidore Guérin, 23 April 1865, no 13, CF, p. 30.
31. To Isidore Guérin, 6 March 1870, no 53, CF, p. 90.
32. This story is often repeated in Catholic accounts of the life of Saint Thérèse, but I a, unable to find the original source for it. It may have been related to the early biographers by Isidore Guérin, Zélie Martin's brother. The only other posssible source would have been her daughters.
33. See Furlong, Thérèse, pp. 25-6. Also Vita Sackville-West, The Eagle and the Dove (London, 1973), pp. 102-3.
34. See Furlong, Thérèse, pp. 25-6. Also Vita Sackville-West, The Eagle and the Dove (London, 1973), pp. 102-3.
35. To Céline Guérin, 15 December 1872, no 83, CF, p. 140.
36. To Céline Guérin, 17 December 1876, no 177, CF, p. 331.
37. To Céline Guérin, 2 November 1876, no 171, CF, p. 316.
38. To Céline Guérin, 7 December 1876, no 176, CF, p. 330.
39. Ibid., p. 332.
40. To Céline Guérin, 17 December 1876, no 177, CF, p. 332.
41. A sixteenth-century medical text cited by Uxol, Histoire du cancer du sein, p. 85.
42. Ibid., pp. 33-6.
43. Velpeau, Traité des maladies, p. 580.
44. Ibid., p. 559.
45. Ibid.
46. Rieffel, De quelques points relatifs, p. 36.
47. See De Moulin, Short History, p. 86, for a table of various survival rates during the later nineteenth century. The proportion of long-term survivors does not increase signficantly, even in the 1890s.
48. Velpeau, Traité des maladies, p. 527.
49. To Céline Guérin, 20 October 1876, no 168, CF, p. 309
50. Velpeau, Traité des maladies, p. 527.
51. Rieffel, De quelques points relatifs, p. 104.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid.
54. Velpeau, Traité des maladies, p. 326.
55. To Céline Guérin, 17 December 1876, no 177, CF, p. 332.
56. To Céline Guérin, 14 June 1877, no 207, CF, p. 404.
57. Ibid. p. 405.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. To Céline Guérin, 17 December 1876, no 177, CF, p. 332.
61. To Isidore Guérin, 27 July 1877, no 216, CF, p. 432.
62. To Isidore Guérin, 16 August 1877, no 217, CF, p. 433.
63. Marie Martin to the Guérin, family, 25 August 1877, CF, p. 441.
64. Marie Martin quoted by Stéphane-Joseph Piat, Marie Martin (Lisieux, 1967), p. 53.
65. To Isidore Guérin, 27 July 1877, no 216, CF, p. 432.
66. Geoffrey Harding, Opiate Addiction, Morality and Medicine (Basingstoke, 1988), pp. 34-6.
67. J. Patezon, 'Vittell (Vosges) ses minérales', reviewed in Revue des specialités et des innovations médicales et chirurgicales, 2 (1858), t II, p. 183.
68. Velpeau, Traité des maladies, p. 523.
69. To Isidore Guérin, December 1876, no 178, CF, p. 336.
70. To Céline Guérin, 17 December 1876, no 177, CF, p. 333.
71. To Céline Guérin, 20 February 1877, no 189, CF, p. 361.
72. To Pauline Martin, 22 March 1877, no 185, CF, p. 378.
73. To Isidore and Céline Guérin, 7 June 1877, no 205, CF, p. 401.
74. To Pauline Martin, 25 June 1877, no 210, CF, p. 417.
75. To Céline Guérin, 8 July 1877, no 212, CF, p. 419.
76. Ibid., pp. 419-20.
77. To Isidore Guérin, 27 July 1877, no 216, CF, p. 432.
78. To Céline Guérin, 15 July 1877, no 213, CF, p. 425.
79. Piat, Marie, p. 53.
80. To Céline Guérin, 15 July 1877, no 213, CF, p. 426.
81. Ibid. p. 425.
82. To Pauline Martin, 4 March 1877, no 191, CF, p. 365.
83. Quoted in Guy Gaucher, The Passion of Thérèse of Lisieux (translated by Sr Anne Marie Brennan) (Homebush, 1989), p. 183.
84. To Céline Guérin, 28 January 1877, no. 186, CF, p. 354.
85. To Céline Guérin, 20 February 1877, no 189, CF, p. 361.
86. To Céline Guérin, 12 November 1876, no 177, CF, p. 322.
87. To Céline Guérin, 15 July 1877, no 213, CF, p. 426.
88. Alain Morel, 'Power and Ideology in Picardy', in Robert Forster and Orest Ranum (eds.), Rural Society in France, Selections from the Annales (translated by Elborg Forster and Patricia M. Ranum) (Baltimore, 1977), p. 115.
89. To Céline Guérin, 12 April 1877, no 197, CF, p. 381.
90. Dr Boissarie, Les grandes guérisons de Lourdes (Paris, 1900), p. 153.
91. To Isidore Guérin, 11 June 1877, no 206, CF, p. 403.
92. Ibid., p. 404.
93. Ibid.
94. To Isidore and Céline Guérin, 24 June 1877, no 209, CF, p. 410.
95. To Isidore Guérin, 24 June 1877, no 209, CF, p. 408.
96. Ibid., p. 415.
97. Ibid., p. 415.
98. Ibid.
99. To Céline Guérin, 8 July 1877, no 212, CF, p. 419.
100. To Céline Guérin, 15 July 1877, no 213, CF, p. 426.
101. To Isidore Guérin, 27 July 1877, no 216, CF, p. 431.
102. To Isidore Guérin, 16 August 1877, no 217, CF, p. 433.
103. To Céline Guérin, 17 December 1876, no 177, CF, p. 332.
104. Ibid., pp. 332-3.
105. Ibid, p. 333.
106. Ibid.
107. To Isidore and Céline Guérin, 24 June 1877, no 209, CF, p. 410.
108. Marie Martin, 9 August 1877, CF, p. 439.
109. Marie Martin, 28 July 1877, CF, p. 438.
110. To Isidore and Céline Guérin, 24 July 1877, no 215, CF, p. 431.
111. Marie Martin, 28 July 1877, CF, p. 437.
112. Ibid.
113. Marie Martin, 25 August 1877, CF, p. 440.
114. Ibid.
115. Ibid., p. 441.
116. Saint Thérèse de Lisieux, Histoire, p. 41.
117. Marie Martin quoted in Piat, Marie, p. 53.
118. Testimony of Marie Martin, Procés de Béatification et canonisation de sainte Thérèse (Rome, 1976), v II, p. 226.
119. Alexander, Pope, 'On Mrs Corbet Who Died of a Cancer in her Breast', Poetical Works (Oxford, 1966), p. 648.
120. Marie Martin in 1939, quoted by Guy Gaucher, The Spiritual Journey of Thérèse of Lisieux (London, 1987), pp. 213-14.
121. To Céline Guérin, 12 April 1877, no 197, CF, p. 381.