Giuseppe Moscati

Life events

1. Born — 1880

   Giuseppe Maria Carlo Alfonso Moscati was born at one o'clock in the morning on 25 July 1880 in the Rotondi Andreotti Leo Palace in Benevento, the seventh of nine children of a noble Beneventene family; he was baptized six days later by the priest Innocenzo Maio.

2. Educated — 1903

   On 4 August 1903, Moscati graduated with honours from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Naples; his doctoral thesis on hepatic ureogenesis was judged worthy of publication. He passed both the ordinary and extraordinary assistant competitions at the Ospedale degli Incurabili shortly after.

3. Other — 1906

   During the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on 8 April 1906, Moscati directed the evacuation of elderly and paralytic patients from the hospital at Torre del Greco moments before the roof collapsed under volcanic ash. He subsequently wrote to the general director of the Neapolitan hospital service thanking those who helped without mentioning his own name.

4. Other — 1911

   During the 1911 cholera outbreak in Naples, the civic government charged Moscati with conducting public health inspections and researching the disease's origins; he presented recommendations to city officials, most of which were implemented before his death. That same year he joined the Royal Academy of Surgical Medicine and received his doctorate in physiological chemistry.

5. Other — 1919

   In 1919 the board of directors of the Incurabili Hospital appointed Moscati chief physician. During World War I he had been rejected for military service but treated close to 3,000 soldiers at his hospital after it was requisitioned by the military.

6. Died — 1927

   Moscati died on the afternoon of 12 April 1927 in Naples. Having attended Mass and received Communion that morning and seen patients until around three o'clock, he sat down in an armchair in his office and died.

7. Other — 1975

   Pope Paul VI beatified Moscati on 16 November 1975. His cause had been formally opened on 6 March 1949 with the title of Servant of God, following theological approval of his spiritual writings on 11 May 1945.

8. Other — 1987

   Pope John Paul II canonized Moscati on 25 October 1987. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints had promulgated the decree on the canonization miracle — the complete remission of acute myeloblastic leukaemia in ironworker Giuseppe Montefusco in 1979 — on 27 March 1987.

Relationships

Documented claims

• Moscati was the first physician to introduce insulin therapy in Italy, making him a pioneer of modern diabetology and endocrinology. He was also noted for studies using light microscopy to determine blood amounts in experimental nephritis. (likely)
• Moscati refused to charge poor patients for treatment and was known to send patients home with a prescription accompanied by a 50-lira note; he also personally delivered milk each morning to undernourished children in Naples's poorest neighbourhoods. (certain)
• In the autopsy room of the Institute of Anatomical Pathology, Moscati placed a crucifix inscribed with Hosea 13:14 in Latin: "Ero mors tua, o mors" (O death, I will be thy death). (certain)
• Two miracles supported Moscati's 1975 beatification: the 1954 inexplicable recovery of Costantino Nazzaro from Addison's disease following a dream of Moscati performing surgery, and the sudden 1941 remission of Raffaele Perrotta's meningococcal meningitis after his mother invoked Moscati's intercession. (likely)
• Moscati was the first modern doctor to be canonized by the Catholic Church. His liturgical feast, originally fixed on 16 November (the dies depositionis), was restored to his dies natalis of 12 April by the Roman Martyrology of 2001. (likely)