Author Description

This is the compelling and inspirational true story of a medical doctor who lived in the 20th century and is now a canonized saint. Giuseppe Moscati, physician, medical researcher, and teacher in Naples, Italy, came from an aristocratic family and devoted his medical career to serving the poor. He was also a medical school professor, and a pioneer in the field of biochemistry whose research led to the discovery of insulin as a cure for diabetes. Moscati regarded his medical practice as a lay apostolate, a ministry to his suffering fellowmen. Before examining a patient or engaging in research he would place himself in the presence of God. Moscati treated poor patients free of charge, and would often send them home with an envelope containing a prescription and a 50-lire note. He could have pursued a brilliant academic career, taken a professorial chair and devoted more time to research, but he preferred to continue working with his beloved patients and to train dedicated interns. To his many medical students he taught by the witness of his life to practice their profession in a spirit of service, because "suffering should be treated not as just pain of the body, but as the cry of a soul, to whom another brother, the doctor, runs to with the ardent love of charity... They are the faces of Jesus Christ, and the Gospel precept urges us to love them as ourselves." "This man whom we will invoke as a saint of the universal Church appears to us as a concrete realization of the ideal of the Christian layman. Giuseppe Moscati, head physician of a hospital, a renowned researcher, a university instructor of human physiology and chemistry, performed his many and various tasks with all the commitment and seriousness that the practice of these delicate lay professions requires." - Pope John Paul II, Homily at the Canonization of Giuseppe Moscati