Miracle No. 55?

The candidate for official recognition as the subject of the ssth miraculous cure to be certified at the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, France, works as hotel manager of the New Venture public house in Kernel Hempsted, Hertfordshire. "My boss was a little scared about me at first," he said last week. "But now I'm working 12 hours a day."

Joseph de Borse-Day, 49, was a chef at The Bell in the fall of 1955 when he suddenly began losing weight--14 Ibs. in one week, followed by a serious hemorrhage. Surgeons removed a cancer-ridden right lung and several cancerous glands along his spine. De Borse's remaining lung developed bronchopleural fistulas, and the hospital staff rated his chance of recovery at just about zero.

The Way to the Shrine. "It was while I was in a sort of coma," says Roman Catholic de Borse. "that I kept hearing ' the word 'Lourdes.' I tried to tell one doctor, but he couldn't understand me. Next morning I finally got it over to another doctor. At first they opposed me at every turn, and the airline companies weren't any better--they were afraid I'd die on the plane. And I had no money. But then there was another kind of miracle: a woman stopped my priest, Father Vaughan, in the street and asked him what was worrying him. He told her about me, and she opened her purse just like that and brought out a check for -L-100."

De Borse, weighing 90 Ibs.. was carried aboard the plane. At the grotto where, in 1858, Bernadette Soubirous reported her visions of the Virgin, two male nurses supported him on each side. "Then came the physical shock of the cold water. There was nothing dramatic. I just suddenly felt completely fit. I wanted to jump out of the pool myself, but the attendants held me. I dressed myself and the attendants came after me with the chair, but I insisted on walking. There were moments when my legs felt like jelly; I felt I'd never make it. but I did. And I stopped in the nearest cafe for a Pernod. I was ravenous, too."

In June, a year later, de Borse went back to Lourdes for a checkup by the Medical Bureau there, which pronounced him healthy. But de Borse's case still has a stiff course of hurdles before it is confirmed as Miracle No. 55.

The Screening Process. Of the 3,000,000 pilgrims who visit Lourdes each year, some 30,000 are stretcher cases avowedly hoping for cures. Most of these are examined before entering the water by a Bureau of Scientific Studies, which checks the medical history of the case and transmits a dossier to the Medical Bureau. If a patient later declares himself helped or cured, he is immediately examined by a doctor in attendance, who reports in turn to the bureau. This body of doctors (all Roman Catholic) meets almost every day at the height of the season, automatically rejects mental and nervous ailments and all cases of paralysis, unless definitely established as organic in origin. Fewer than ten of some 200 cases a year are considered worthy of further investigation.

These are kept under medical supervision for a year, then examined again. If favorable, the report then goes to an International Commission--40 prominent Roman Catholic physicians--which meets once a year in Paris. If the International Commission approves, a final report is sent to the bishop of the patient's diocese (in de Borse's case, the Archbishop of Westminster), who in turn sets up a canonical committee to decide whether the cure is to be regarded as miraculous.

By the time all this has happened, doctors point out, de Borse's cancer may recur, and even if it does not, the case is remarkable rather than unprecedented. All agree, however, that his dramatic recovery dated from the visit to Lourdes. And perhaps the strangest factor of all is de Borse's own remembrance of the event. "I don't think I had faith in the cure at Lourdes," he admits. "I was just called there. I felt I had to go."

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