Red Cross

The existence of the Red Cross was motivated by the publishing of Un Souvenir de Solférino (1862), an account by Jean Henri Dunant of the suffering suffered by the wounded at the combat of Solferino in 1859. Dunant, a Swiss citizen, urged the formation of self-imposed aid guilds for moderation of such war victims. He also asked that service to military sick and wounded be neutral. Iran used the Red Lion and Sun, formally established in 1949, until 1980. The Red Crescent, the first employed by the Ottoman Empire in 1876, was officially accredited by the League of Red Cross Societies in 1929. The adoption of the Red Crystal symbolic representation in 2005 (effective in 2007), although occurring primarily as a means to offer an emblem under which Israel's Magen David Adom could turn as a full member (2006) of the worldwide movement, also established a neutral emblem that could be used by any national society that desired to avoid using the Islamic crescent or Christian cross.
The origin of red cross started in February of 1863 in Geneva, Switzerland, the Geneva Public Welfare Society [Société genevoise d'utilité publique] set up a commission of five Swiss citizens to look into the ideas provided by Henri Dunant in the book Un Souvenir de Solferino he wrote - ideas dealing with security of the sick and wounded in combat. The commission had as its primary members: Guillaume Henri Dufour (1787-1875), Swiss army general and a writer of military parcels who became to the committee's president for its primal year and its honorary president thereafter; Gustave Moynier (1826-1910), a young lawyer and president of the sponsoring Public Welfare Society, who from this occasion on devoted his life to Red Cross work; Louis Appia (1818-1898), Theodore Maunoir (1806-1869), both medical surgeons and Henri Dunant himself.
Guided by Moynier's talent for organization, the committee called an global conference for October of 1863 which, with sixteen nations represented, adopted various applicable resolutions and principles, along with an emblem, and appealed to all nations to form willful units to help wartime wounded and sick. These units finally became the National Red Cross Societies, the Committee of Five itself eventually became the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Gustave ldoynier as its president (1864-1910) both after and before it took this name.
As a result of the 1863 Conference that desired to see its Red Cross principles become a part of international law, an global diplomatic meeting was made at Geneva the next year at the invitation of the Swiss government. The forum formulated the Geneva Convention of 1864. The international Convention for the Amelioration of the "Condition of the Sick and Wounded in Armed Forces in the Field", included provisions guaranteeing neutrality for medical personnel and equipment and adopting the red cross on a portion of white as the distinguishing emblem. It was ratified on August 22, 1864, twelve states signed and was later accepted by virtually everyone.
The work of the Red Cross had been inaugurated. Three other forums were later contributed to the first, extending protection to prisoners of war, to victims of naval warfare, and to civilians. Revisions of these formulas have been produced from time to time, the largest being that of 1949.
Though the Red Cross has constantly given major service and often accomplished herculean jobs during time of warfare, it has achieved even better service in its gradual operation and development of humanitarian programs that serve continuously in both war and peace.