Excerpt from Religious Rheumatism

Of all the afflictions to which the human body is heir there is none that is capable of inflicting such exquisite torture upon its victims as rheumatism.

In the days of the persecutions an iron statue of the Virgin Mary was made so that the arms would enfold the victim and pierce him with many wounds. Thrust into the arms of the iron Virgin, the poor heretic was soon jabbed by knives that issued from the inner sides of the arms and by a pointed tongue that issued from the mouth. It was intended to illustrate the contempt of the Virgin Mary for those who turned their back upon the pope.

But that suffering was nothing compared with the pain that the hot-footed devils of torture trust into the joints and ligaments and muscles of a rheumatic patient. The agonies of the victim of the ancient statue were all of the same kind, the agonies of the rheumatic are almost as varied as the attacks are numerous.

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