Saint Blaise

Blaise lived under Emperor Licinius (308-323). He studied medicine and treated the sick without charge, even covering their expenses, and later entered the clergy and became bishop of Sebaste.

According to tradition, he withdrew for a time to a cave, where wild animals came to him to be healed, and in one of his best-known miracles he saved a child who was choking on a fish bone - which is why he is still invoked for ailments of the throat.

Under the prefect Agricola he was arrested, tortured with iron combs and finally beheaded in 316.