MOSCATI, GIUSEPPE. — Physician, born in Benevento on 25 July 1880, died in Naples on 12 April 1927. At the age of 17 he made a vow of perpetual chastity; he embraced a medical career with the sole purpose of glorifying the Lord through it and saving souls. Having obtained his degree with highest honors in 1903, he was immediately appointed extraordinary assistant physician at the Ospedali Riuniti of Naples.
In cases of public calamity, such as during the eruption of Vesuvius in 1906, when he rescued elderly patients from the rubble and brought them to safety from the hospice in Torre del Greco, and during the cholera epidemic of 1911, he was always at his post, even when other colleagues were absent, heroically and selflessly undertaking the most difficult tasks in the hardest-hit areas of the city. In 1911 he became chief physician at the Incurabili and lecturer in physiological chemistry at the University; from there he moved as a full physician to the Ospedali Riuniti; in 1919 he was appointed professor of clinical chemistry at the University; in 1922 he obtained a further qualification to teach general medical clinic. On behalf of the government, he participated in the International Medical Congresses of Budapest (1911) and Edinburgh (1923).
Endowed with extraordinary diagnostic acumen, he treated his patients with particular skill and charity, striving to cure their illnesses at the least financial burden, to the point that he often refused any compensation and supplied the money to purchase medicines, and sought to lead them back to faith and the practice of Christian life. He devoted every care to the students in order to prepare them properly for their future profession. A man of profound spiritual life, M. always demonstrated his faith before everyone with pride and joy, winning colleagues, students, and the sick over to Christian practice.
As he had foreseen and announced, he died on 12 April 1927. Since 1930 his remains have been transferred to the church of the Gesù Nuovo in Naples, and many miraculous cures have been attributed to his intercession; his cause of beatification was introduced in 1949.
Among his works, 32 scientific publications.