moribund body of a piece of the true
cross, about the year 1244; and later in the century miracles took
place at his tomb. M. Littre, in his _Fragment de Medecine
Retrospective_, describes seven miracles which occurred at his tomb,
some of which cures, however, were very gradual. We are also told that
when a humble hunchback bowed the knee in adoration at the tomb of St.
Andreas, his irresistible faith instantly released him from his
unnatural rotundity. In 1243 a Ferrara writer was at Padua, and while
attending vespers at the tomb where the sainted body of the Minorite
Anthony reposed, he affirms that he saw a person who had been mute
from his birth recover his voice and speak audibly.

Saintly remedies were used to cure hemorrhages, readjust luxations,
unite fractures, remove calculi, moderate the agonizing pangs of
parturition, restore vision to the blind, and hearing to the deaf--in
fact, in an endeavor to perform cures which modern medicine and
surgery are counting among their greatest and most recent triumphs.
Some things even more strange were attempted: paradoxical as it may
seem, they were used to cover up crime. Fort tells us that among nuns
and consecrated women in convents, some erring sisters applied the
preventive talismanic influence of a sacred shirt or girdle to
suppress the manifestation of conventual irregularities of a sexual
character. Animals as well as human beings were treated for sickness,
and relics were used to free captive birds and animals. At a banquet,
a costly urn was shattered by ecclesiastics, and through the power of
Odilo it was restored to its original integrity. At the tombs of both
St. Severin and St. Gall, when the light had been quenched, miraculous
fire burst forth to renew the splendor.[35]

The allotment of certain diseases to certain saints did not end with
the Middle Ages. I have in my hand a little manual entitled: _De
l'Invocation miraculeuse des Saints dans les maladies et les besoins
particuliers, par Mme. la Baronne d'Avout_, published in 1884. An
invocation is given for every day in the year to some particular
saint, who is thought to be especially efficacious in the cure of some
specific disease. I shall quote but one for illustration.

"30 MAI
S. HUBERT DE BRETIGNY
Pres Noyons (Oise).
Honore au diocese de Beauvais.

"L'illustre saint Hubert, apotre des Ardennes, fut son
protecteur et lui donna son nom. Il lui obtint les plus
heureuses dispositio