Alexis Carrel and His Voyage of Discovery: Miracles and the Spirituality of Healing.

In the era of positivism and anticlericalism of France's Belle Époque, scientist Alexis Carrel stood in stark contrast as one preoccupied with his faith and its relation to scientific scrutiny. Despite his early adult agnosticism, he sought proof of the divine and chose verification of the miraculous cures reported from the shrine at Lourdes, France. It so happened that on his first visit there, he encountered a truly remarkable "cure" of a young woman in the terminal stages of tubercular peritonitis. On a return visit, for the second time, he witnessed the restoration of sight to a blind child. Throughout the rest of his life, Carrel was struck by the proximity of the supernatural to corporeal interactions. He ultimately found a place for his faith as a parallel pathway and not in juxtaposition to the scientific. This paper chronicles Carrel's evolution of belief and reconciliation of faith and science.