July 14th. St. Camillus of Lellis.

He was born in 1550 in the remote Abruzzi region, high in the central Italian Apennines. Strong, violent, and addicted to gambling, he served as a soldier in the army of Venice, until brought low by disease and by the loss of all his fortune at the gambling table. In 1575 he underwent a spiritual conversion; he wanted to join the Franciscans, but his health prevented it, and he was to become Bursar of the San Giacomo Hospital in Rome. Encouraged by St. Philip Neri, he was to be ordained, and in 1585 dedicated himself with a group of others to the service of the sick, of prisoners, and especially of plague victims. This nucleus of workers formed the basis of his Order of Ministers of the Sick. Some members of this Order went with the armies to Hungary and to Croatia as the first recorded field ambulance service; others founded hospitals, in Rome, Naples and elsewhere. Many died of the plague caught from those they tended. St. Camillus died in Genoa in 1614 and was canonised in 1746.