Giuseppe Moscati (25 July 1880 – 12 April 1927) was an Italian doctor, scientific researcher, and university professor noted both for his pioneering work in biochemistry and for his piety. Moscati was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1987; his feast day is 16 November.
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. His father, Francesco, was well known as a lawyer and magistrate in the area; his mother, Rosa De Luca dei Marchesi di Roseto, was of noble birth.
The family moved from Cassino to Benevento in 1877 following his father's appointment as president of the Benevento court, and for a time was lodged Via San Diodato, near the Sacred Heart of Jesus hospital, later moving to Via Porta Aurea. Giuseppe Maria Carlo Alfonso Moscati was born at one o'clock in the morning on 25 July 1880, in the Rotondi Andreotti Leo Palace. The child was baptised in the same place, six days after his birth (31 July), by the priest Innocenzo Maio.
In commemoration of Moscati's ties to the area, a marble statue would later be erected in the Blessed Sacrament chapel of Benevento Cathedral. At eight years of age, on 8 December 1888, 'Peppino' (as he was called and as he liked to sign himself in his personal correspondence) received his First Holy Communion from Monsignor Enrico Marano in the Sanctuary of the Ancelle del Sacro Cuore (Handmaids of the Sacred Heart), where Moscati later often met Blessed Bartolo Longo, destined to become the founder of the Marian Shrine of Pompei. Next to the church lived Caterina Volpicelli, later declared a saint, with whom the family developed a spiritual bond. Caterina was eventually to become one of the most important spiritual guides in Moscati's later life.
In the meantime his father, promoted in 1881 to the post of Court of Appeal counsellor, moved as a consequence with his family to Ancona, but in 1884 they moved back to Naples again, when he was transferred to the Court of Appeal there. This time the family settled first of all at 83 Via Santa Teresa al Museo, moving later to live on Piazza Dante at Port'Alba, and finally at 10 Via Cisterna dell'Olio.
Moscati would spend much of the rest of his life in the Naples. During these early years the family spent its summers in Avellino, and there Giuseppe would have seen his father serve at the altar in the local chapel of the Poor Clares whenever the family attended Mass there.
After finishing his elementary schooling in 1889, Moscati was admitted to the Liceo Vittorio Emanuele II in Naples, where among his professors was the vulcanologist Giuseppe Mercalli. He showed interest in studying from an early age, and was awarded the 'honours high school diploma' in 1897.
In 1892 Giuseppe's brother, Alberto, received incurable head trauma in a fall from a horse during his military service. Observing the care which Alberto received at home inspired in Giuseppe an interest in medicine, and following the conclusion of his secondary studies in 1897, he embarked on university medical studies. In that same year his father died from a cerebral haemorrhage. According to biographer Marini, Giuseppe saw the work of a medical doctor as a sort of priesthood.
On 3 March 1900 he received the sacrament of confirmation at the hands of Pasquale de Siena, Auxiliary Bishop of Naples.
It was in 1903 that he was awarded his doctorate from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Naples, his thesis dealing with hepatic urogenesis.
On 4 August 1903 he graduated with honours with a thesis on hepatic ureogenesis that was considered worthy of print. A few months later, he took part in the competitions for ordinary assistant and extraordinary assistant at the Ospedale degli Incurabili, passing both tests, even coming second in the competition for ordinary assistant.
On 2 June 1904 his brother Albert died of complications from the illnesses that arose from the horse riding accident.
During this time he continued to study, conducting medical research when not performing his duties at the hospital. Already recognized for his commitment to his duties, he won further recognition for his actions in the aftermath of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on 8 April 1906. One of the hospitals for which Moscati was responsible, at Torre del Greco, was located a few miles from the volcano's crater. Many of its patients were elderly, and many were paralytics as well. Moscati oversaw the evacuation of the building, getting them all out just before the roof collapsed due to the ash. Moscati's timely intervention was considered essential to avoid a tragedy. He 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.
In 1908, after passing the competition to become an assistant professor for the chair of Physiological Chemistry, he began working in the laboratory and conducting scientific research at the Institute of Physiology at the Domenico Cotugno Hospital for Infectious Diseases.
Also in 1911 Moscati was sent to Vienna by Gaetano Rummoit (then at the Higher Council of Public Education), to attend the International Physiology Conference, taking the opportunity to also visit Budapest; he also 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, 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. This he did quickly, presenting his suggestions to city officials. To his satisfaction, most of these ideas were put into practice by the time of his death. Also in 1911, Moscati became a member of the Royal Academy of Surgical Medicine (in Italian: Regia Accademia Medico-Chirurgica), and received his doctorate in physiological chemistry. Moscati became "the first to introduce insulin therapy
in Italy; and can therefore be considered a pioneer of modern diabetology and endocrinology." Moscati also became "famous in Italy for his studies on the determination by light microscopy of the amount of blood in experimental nephritis." These studies allowed him "to explain the clinical and patho-physiological difference between nephritic and nephrotic syndrome and the existence of the extended clinical syndrome of nephritis."
Besides his work as a researcher and as a doctor, Moscati was responsible for overseeing the directions of the local Institute of Anatomical Pathology. In the institute's autopsy room, he placed a crucifix inscribed with Chapter 13, verse 14 of the Book of Hosea, Ero mors tua, o mors (O death, I will be thy death).