Women of courage

This month, we would like to focus attention on nuns who, through their prayers and their everyday actions, are always ready to offer themselves to other human beings, during their own lifetime and beyond.

Let us consider the example of 678 nuns, all very advanced in their years, all members of an Order called The Sisters of St. Scholastica of Notre Dame. What did they do? They made the simple gesture of answering a request by Prof. David Snowdon, an epidemiologist at the University of Kentucky, who has for many years been conducting extensive research into Alzheimer’s disease, the terrible illness which attacks the central nervous system, especially in the old. What did the professor ask of the nuns? To donate their brains for analysis immediately after their death.

It was in 1990 that Snowdon decided to concentrate on this disease which afflicts over 4 million people in the United States, among whom the ex-President, Ronald Reagan. He contacted the heads of the religious order to put forward his delicate request: Would you be prepared to donate your brain when you die? The response was astounding: every convent replied with an enthusiastic ‘Yes!’ It was as though each of these aged sisters, by donating part of her body, felt able to continue the mission of charity to which she had dedicated her life, even after her death.

In particular, Prof. Snowdon remembers Sister Mary, an extraordinary centenarian who used to read several newspapers every day to keep herself abreast of current affairs and, with the help of an atlas, would pray for all the children on earth, one continent at a time. She was sharp-minded and witty, and hardly seemed susceptible to Alzheimer’s, or to any other disease for that matter. Yet, when she died two years ago, only three months before her hundred and second birthday, a surgical examination revealed an unimaginable secret: her brain was riddled with microscopic bacteria interspersed with holes left by dead nerve cells. Sister Mary had been affected by a devastating form of Alzheimer’s which was so advanced that her coherence and mental agility even immediately prior to her death seem almost unbelievable. From then on, Snowdon’s research took a revolutionary new direction which, some months back, led to one of the most important recent conclusions with respect to this terrible disease. Observes Snowdon: Sister Mary was an exceptional case, but not a unique one.

Just like Sister Mary, a third of the nuns examined had not been affected by the symptoms of confusion and loss of memory normally associated with the disease. The reason, as stated by Snowdon in an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, was that, unlike their sisters whose symptoms had been serious, these sisters had never had heart problems, not even those mild heart-attacks which are so common in old age. The key to delaying the symptoms of Alzheimer’s would therefore be the correct prevention of heart problems.

However, Professor Snowdon is not resting on his laurels. And so, whenever one of the nuns passes away, her gift to science is flown to Kentucky University for analysis. The sisters allow themselves to be subjected to blood tests and psychological examinations; some of them even submit the diaries they kept in their youth. They are at the complete disposal of science, their only thoughts for those patients who, thanks to their sacrifices, might benefit from subsequent discoveries about the disease. These women have dedicated their lives to teaching others, said Prof. Snowdon, and now they have found a way to continue to do so, even from beyond the grave.