Ginette Nouvel of Carmaux in the Tarn was 26 years old and had been diagnosed in 1951 with Budd-Chiari syndrome — thrombotic occlusion of the hepatic veins, with massive ascites (her abdomen had been drained repeatedly), gross hepatomegaly, and a poor prognosis. By 1954 the hospital at Albi had pronounced her condition terminal.
She came to Lourdes on the pilgrimage of September 1954. Bathed in the piscines on September 21, she felt the abdomen visibly subside as she emerged from the water. The ascites was gone within 24 hours; the liver returned to normal size within weeks; she resumed normal life. The Lourdes Medical Bureau and the International Medical Committee monitored the cure for nine years before the Bishop of Albi recognised it as the 58th miraculous cure on May 31, 1963.