Jeanne Fretel, a 34-year-old hospital cook from Rennes, had suffered from advanced tubercular peritonitis since 1938 with a chronic pelvic abscess, recurrent fistulae, and the inability to retain food. She weighed less than 70 pounds, was reduced to lying on her side, and had received the Last Sacraments six times. She was carried to Lourdes on the Brittany pilgrimage of October 1948 with no expectation of return.
On the morning of October 8 the priest celebrating Mass at the Hospital of Notre Dame des Sept Douleurs, where she lay too weak to attend the procession, brought her Holy Communion. Before placing the Host on her tongue he laid the monstrance briefly on her abdomen. The chronic mass shrank instantly under his hand; she was at once able to sit up, eat solid food (the first time in years), and walk by evening. The Lourdes Medical Bureau and the International Medical Committee certified the cure. The Archbishop of Rennes recognised it on November 20, 1950 — the 50th miraculous cure on the list.