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Saint Camillus de Lellis in his black habit, his head sinking in ecstasy, painted by Cristóbal Lozano in 1762

Saint Camillus de Lellis

Soldier and gambler who became a nurse and founded an order to care for the sick

Patron of
nurses and nurses' associations
Western calendar
14 July
Orthodox calendar
Not kept

Camillus de Lellis was a soldier and a confirmed gambler who at times lost all he had, until a sermon by the guardian of a Capuchin friary so startled him that he resolved to change. Turned away by the Capuchins because of the abscesses on his feet, he went back to the Hospital for Incurables in Rome as a nurse, rose to direct it, became a priest, and founded an order vowed to care for the plague-stricken, in hospitals and in their homes. In pain for forty-six years, he would crawl from his bed to visit the sick, and in 1930 Pius XI named him, with John of God, patron of nurses.

Sources

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