'Purgatory on earth': an account of breast cancer from nineteenth-century France.

The subject of this article is the terminal illness of Zelie Martin who died from breast cancer in 1877. She was a Catholic woman of Normandy, a professional lace-maker, and the mother of five daughters. Her extensive correspondence, which records her fatal illness, is the main source for this study. Her accounts of the disease are compared with medical texts of the period. Religious responses to illness, and the suppport offered by family members are also described.