Lidwina

Saint Lidwina of Schiedam
Lidwina's fall on the ice, Wood drawing from the 1498 edition of John Brugman's Vita of Lidwina
Born	(1380-03-18)March 18, 1380 Schiedam, County of Holland, Holy Roman Empire
Died	April 14, 1433(1433-04-14) (aged 53) Schiedam, County of Holland, Holy Roman Empire
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Canonized	cultus confirmed March 14, 1890 by Pope Leo XIII
Major shrine	Schiedam, South Holland, Netherlands
Feast	April 14
Patronage	chronically ill, ice skaters, town of Schiedam

Lidwina (Lydwine, Lydwid, Lidwid, Liduina of Schiedam) was a Dutch mystic who is honored as a saint by the Catholic Church. She is also thought to be one of the first documented cases of multiple sclerosis.

At age 15, Lidwina was ice skating when she fell and broke a rib. She never recovered and became progressively disabled for the rest of her life. Her biographers state that she became paralyzed except for her left hand and that great pieces of her body fell off, and that blood poured from her mouth, ears, and nose. Today some posit that Saint Lidwina is one of the first known multiple sclerosis patients and attribute her disability to the effects of the disease and her fall.

After her fall, Lidwina fasted continuously and acquired fame as a healer and holy woman. The town officials of Schiedam, her hometown, promulgated a document (which has survived) that attests to her complete lack of food and sleep. At first she ate a little piece of apple, then a bit of date and watered wine, then river water contaminated with salt from the tides. The authenticating document from Schiedam also attests that Lidwina shed skin, bones, parts of her intestines, which her parents kept in a vase and which gave off a sweet odor. These excited so much attention that Lidwina had her mother bury them.

Lidwina died at the age of 53. She is known as the patron saint of ice and wheels skaters, disease and suffering .

Several hagiographical accounts of her life exist. One of these states that while the soldiers of Philip of Burgundy were occupying Schiedam, a guard was set around her to test her fasts, which were authenticated. It is also reported that four soldiers abused her during this occupation, claiming that Lidwina's swollen body was due to her being impregnated by the local priest rather than from her sickness.

The well-known German preacher and poet, Friar John Brugman, wrote two Lives of St. Lidwina, the first of which, printed at Cologne in 1433, was reprinted anonymously at Leuven in 1448, and later epitomised by Thomas à Kempis at Cologne in his Vita Lidewigis. The second life appeared at Schiedam in 1498; both have been embodied by the Bollandists in the Acta Sanctorum under 2 April. More recently, in 1901, Joris-Karl Huysmans published a biography of Lidwina.