Gabrielle Clauzel of Oran (then French Algeria) was 42 and had suffered since the 1930s from rheumatic spondylitis (ankylosing spondylitis) that had fused her entire spine, hips, and shoulders. She was an immobile bed-rest patient and her physicians had judged the condition irreversible.
She came to Lourdes on the Algerian pilgrimage of August 1943. On August 15, the feast of the Assumption, she was bathed in the piscines and was instantly cured: every joint regained mobility, the pain disappeared, and she walked freely from the baths. The cure was studied by the Lourdes Medical Bureau and was recognised by the Bishop of Oran as the 43rd miraculous Lourdes cure.