37 Facts About Giuseppe Moscati

Giuseppe Moscati was an Italian doctor, scientific researcher, and university professor noted both for his pioneering work in biochemistry and for his piety.

Giuseppe Moscati was the seventh of nine children born to a noble Beneventene family which came from the village of Santa Lucia in Serino, near Avellino.

On 25 July 1880, at one o'clock in the morning, in the Rotondi Andreotti Leo palace, Giuseppe Maria Carlo Alfonso Moscati was born, who was baptised in the same place, six days after his birth, by Don Innocenzo Maio.

Giuseppe Moscati was baptized six days after his birth, and received his first Communion at eight years old.

On 8 December 1888, 'Peppino' received his first communion from Monsignor Enrico Marano in the Sanctuary of the Ancelle del Sacro Cuore, where the Giuseppe Moscati often met Blessed Bartolo Longo, founder of the Sanctuary of Pompei.

Giuseppe Moscati was to become among his most important spiritual guides later in life.

Later, the Giuseppe Moscati family lived in Port'Alba, Piazza Dante and finally in Via Cisterna dell'Olio, 10.

Giuseppe Moscati would spend much of the rest of his life in the city.

Giuseppe Moscati showed interest in studying from an early age, and was awarded the 'honours high school diploma' in 1897.

Giuseppe Moscati received his doctorate from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Naples in 1903.

One of the hospitals for which Giuseppe Moscati was responsible, at Torre del Greco, was located a few miles from the volcano's crater.

Giuseppe Moscati oversaw the evacuation of the building, getting them all out just before the roof collapsed due to the ash.

Giuseppe Moscati sent a letter to the general director of the Neapolitan hospital service, insisting on thanking those who had helped in the evacuation, yet not mentioning his own name.

Also in 1911 Giuseppe Moscati was sent to Vienna by Gaetano Rummoit, to attend the International Physiology Conference, taking the opportunity to visit Budapest; he collaborated, for English and German, on the newspaper La Riforma Medica, founded by Rummo first as a daily, then as a weekly and then as a fortnightly.

When cholera broke out in Naples in 1911, Giuseppe Moscati was charged by the civic government with performing public health inspections, and with researching both the origins of the disease and the best ways to eradicate it.

Also in 1911, Giuseppe Moscati became a member of the Royal Academy of Surgical Medicine, and received his doctorate in physiological chemistry.

Besides his work as a researcher and as a doctor, Giuseppe Moscati was responsible for overseeing the directions of the local Institute of Anatomical Pathology.

Giuseppe Moscati's hospital was taken over by the military, and he himself visited close to 3,000 soldiers.

Giuseppe Moscati's students agreed that he was particularly suited to the teaching profession.

Joseph Giuseppe Moscati cared for all his patients and in particular always helped the poorest with cash donations for medicines and food; Giuseppe Moscati used to buy milk every morning and give it personally to the poor and needy.

In 1922 Giuseppe Moscati was given a libera docenza in clinical medicine, which allowed him to teach at institutes of higher education.

Giuseppe Moscati had attended Mass that morning, receiving Communion as he always did, and spent the remainder of the morning at the hospital.

Giuseppe Moscati's body was initially buried in the cemetery of Poggio Reale, where they ere enclosed in a bronze urn, the work of sculptor Amedeo Garufi, which is why it is on this date that his liturgical memorial was placed.

Giuseppe Moscati remained true to his faith his entire life, taking a vow of chastity and practicing charity in his daily work.

Giuseppe Moscati viewed his practice of medical science as a way of alleviating suffering, not as a way of making profits, and would retire regularly for prayer.

Giuseppe Moscati attended Mass daily, and would sometimes use a patient's faith, as well as the sacraments, in his treatments.

Giuseppe Moscati refused to charge the poor for their treatment, and was known to sometimes send a patient home with a prescription and a 50-lira note in an envelope.

Giuseppe Moscati maintained that there should be no contradiction or antithesis between science and faith: both had to contribute to the good ofman.

Giuseppe Moscati saw theEucharist as the centre of his life and he was strongly attached to the cult of the Virgin.

Giuseppe Moscati prepared himself during the year for the feasts of Our Lady by fasting on the days when this was required.

Giuseppe Moscati wrote, for example, to one of his old pupils:.

Giuseppe Moscati was beatified by Pope Paul VI on 16 November 1975.

Collective prayers were then addressed to Giuseppe Moscati, who was blessed at the time, and Montefusco was cured in June 1979, stopping all treatment and resuming work as a blacksmith.

Giuseppe Moscati was canonized on 25 October 1987, by Pope John Paul II.

The young man's mother dreamed of a doctor wearing a white coat, whom she identified as Giuseppe Moscati when shown a photograph.

In 1977, two years after the beatification, the canonical recognition of the body was carried out: the bones were reassembled and Giuseppe Moscati's body was placed in a bronze urn, the work of sculptor Amedeo Garufi, placed under the altar of the Chapel of the Visitation in the Gesu Nuovo church, where it is still kept.

The film is based on testimonies of contemporaries of Giuseppe Moscati who knew him, and describes his life between his university graduation in 1903 and his death in 1927.