In 1858, a fourteen-year-old peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous had a series of eighteen visions of the Virgin Mary who appeared in a niche in the grotto of Massabielle near Lourdes, a village on the Gave de Pau river in the foothills of the Pyrenees in southern France. The first apparition occurred on 11 February 1858.
During her ninth apparition, on 25 February, Bernadette claimed to have been directed to a spring that had hitherto not existed in the grotto. Its discovery by Bernadette, witnessed by hundreds of onlookers, was eventually declared miraculous. Later studies have shown that the water is pure and contains chlorides of soda, lime and magnesia, bicarbonates of lime and magnesia, silicates of lime and aluminium, oxide of iron, sulphate of soda, phosphate, and organic matter. Otherwise, it is believed to contain no therapeutic ingredients.
The Miraculous Spring in the Grotto at Lourdes
Subsequently, however, the water was claimed to be capable of healing the sick and lame. Of the many thousands of pilgrims who visit Lourdes every year, some claim to be have been miraculously healed. It is estimated that the spring has produced 27,000 gallons of water each week since it first emerged during Bernadette's visions.
