STIGMATIZATION (from ML. stiymatizare, from Gk. arrytAart.retv, stigmatizein, to mark, brand, front artytia, stigma, mark, brand, punc ture, from stizein, to mark, puncture). The name applied to the impression on certain individuals of the 'stigmata' or marks similar to the wounds made in the body of Christ during His torture. These stigmata comprise not only the wounds of the hands and feet and of the side received in the crucifixion, but also those im pressed by the crown of thorns and by the scourging. In some eases the stigmata have been only subjectively felt and could not be seen by others. In a few eases, wherein it has been claimed that the impression was made upon the heart alone, special marks have been found on that organ after death. The impression of the stigmata, being held in certain eases to be mi raculous, was regarded as a mark of signal favor. The first and most remarkable example of stig matization is that of Saint Francis of Assisi (q. v.). In his ease these mysterious markings are said to have persisted for three years, until his death, and to have been seen by Saint Bonaventure and by several popes, and closely ob served by multitudes after his death.
Since Saint Francis's time there have been many such eases. Dr. Imbert Courbeyre in 1894 was able to collect 321 examples. in every century since the thirteenth, in every European country and in every station in life. While the great majority were religious, mostly Dominicans o• Franciscans, many were not and some twenty were in the married state. Nearly 100 were re ported during the nineteenth century. The most
noteworthy of these are Anna Katherine Em merich (died 1824) and Louise Lateau (1850-83) of Bois d'llaine, Belgium. This last case attracted great attention and provoked public discus sion, in which the Salpetriere school of neurology took the position that stigmatization is only a neurotic phenomenon in hysterical individuals. Dr. Lefebvre. an eminent physician, professor of medicine at the University of Louvain, who had been for many years in attendance at two insane asylums, after a prolonged investigation of Louise Latean's' ease, pronounced it miraculous. On the other hand, Theodor Sehwann, the dis tinguished biologist, also a professor at Louvain and himself a Catholic, refused after careful examination to admit the preternatural char acter of the phenomena. There seems no doubt that phenomena of a nearly similar kind have been produced by suggestion in susceptible indi viduals. In the Comptes Rendus of the Society of Biology of Paris for July 11. 1885. there is a report of a ease in which bleeding through the unbroken skin was produced by hypnotic sugges tion. Consult: Gourbeyre, Les (Paris, 1873) : id., La stigmatisation, l'extase divine It les miracles de Lourdes (ib., 1894); Bourneville, Le science et le miracle (ib., 1878) : Lefebvre, Lon ise Gateau (Louvain, 1870) Bourneville, Louise Lateau (Paris, 1875) Richer, Etudes clinigucs cur Phystero-Oilepsie ou grundc (ib., 1881).