Giuseppe Moscati

Upon completing his studies in December 1903, Giuseppe Moscati passed the competitive examinations for the Ospedali Riuniti of Naples and began practicing as a coadjutor at the Hospital for the Incurables (Ospedale degli Incurabili) in 1904. In April 1906, during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, he demonstrated heroic courage by organizing the evacuation of the hospital branch in Torre del Greco, which was located in the danger zone. He managed to save all the elderly and paralyzed patients just before the building's roof collapsed.

In 1908, he was appointed assistant at the Institute of Physiological Chemistry. During the cholera epidemic that struck Naples in 1911, he conducted crucial research on the origin of the disease and proposed effective sanitary measures to limit its spread. That same year, he became assistant chief physician (aiuto ordinario) at the Incurables. During the First World War, he directed the military departments of the Ospedali Riuniti and personally treated nearly 3,000 wounded soldiers.

In 1922, he obtained the Libera Docenza (university habilitation) in general clinical medicine. Although he was an internationally renowned researcher, publishing numerous scientific works (notably on glycogen), he refused a full-time university chair so as not to distance himself from the bedside of the sick, declaring: "My place is with the patient!"

Nicknamed the "physician of the poor," Giuseppe Moscati treated the indigent for free. In his private office, he placed an overturned hat with the inscription: "Chi ha metta, chi non ha prenda" (Whoever has, puts in; whoever does not have, takes), allowing the most destitute to receive treatment and leave with enough to buy food or medicine. To devote himself entirely to his mission, he made a private vow of chastity at the age of 34. Although he lived a Franciscan spirituality according to his confessor, he explicitly refused to join the Third Order of St. Francis or other religious congregations, as his demanding medical profession did not leave him time to attend their meetings.

On April 12, 1927, after attending daily Mass, receiving Communion, and making his rounds at the hospital and his office, Giuseppe Moscati felt great fatigue. He lay down in his armchair and passed away peacefully from a heart attack at the age of 46. The news of his death spread instantly throughout Naples: "The holy doctor is dead!". His funeral gave rise to an immense manifestation of popular fervor. Facing his growing reputation for holiness, his mortal remains were transferred on November 16, 1930, from the Poggioreale cemetery to the Church of the Gesù Nuovo in Naples, where they rest under the altar of the Chapel of the Visitation. The beatification process opened in the diocese of Naples in 1931. On May 10, 1973, Pope Paul VI promulgated the decree recognizing the heroic nature of his virtues, thereby declaring him Venerable.

Giuseppe Moscati was beatified on November 16, 1975, by Pope Paul VI in Saint Peter's Square in Rome. For his beatification, two miracles were officially recognized by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints: 1. The healing of Costantino Nazzaro: an adjutant of the penitentiary police of Avellino, suffering from Addison's disease (a condition then considered incurable). In 1954, after praying at Moscati's tomb, he dreamed that the doctor operated on him and woke up completely healed. 2. The healing of Raffaele Perrotta: a child instantly cured of acute meningococcal cerebrospinal meningitis in February 1941, after his mother placed an image of Moscati under his pillow. He was canonized on October 25, 1987, by Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter's Square, during the assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the vocation and mission of the laity. The miracle accepted for his canonization was the healing of Giuseppe Montefusco, a young blacksmith from Somma Vesuviana suffering from acute myeloblastic leukemia in 1978. His mother, Rosaria, saw in a dream a doctor in a white coat whom she later identified as Giuseppe Moscati thanks to a photograph shown to her by her parish priest. After fervent prayers, the young man was totally healed in 1979. Present at the canonization ceremony, Giuseppe Montefusco offered Pope John Paul II a face of Christ in wrought iron that he had crafted himself.

The first physician of the modern era to be canonized, Giuseppe Moscati embodies the perfect alliance between science and faith. His spiritual life was rooted in the daily Eucharist, the prayer of the Rosary, and a filial devotion to the Virgin Mary. For him, medicine was not a mere profession, but a lay priesthood and a work of divine charity. He taught his students and colleagues that the patient must not be treated as a mere clinical case, but as a person endowed with an immortal soul: "Pain must be treated not as a muscular contraction, but as the cry of a soul, to which another brother, the physician, hastens with the ardor of love, of charity." He also left this famous maxim written in 1922: "It is not science, but charity that has transformed the world, in certain periods; and only very few men have gone down to posterity for their science; but all will be able to remain imperishable, symbols of the eternity of life, in which death is only a stage, a metamorphosis for a higher ascension, if they dedicate themselves to the good." Today, Saint Giuseppe Moscati is the patron saint of physicians, biochemists, and medical emergency services.