The Life of Clara Barton - Founder of the American Red Cross #267324

And this, in its international character, extends not alone to its own, but to all nations within the compact. This society had been formed in 1865, at the instance of Dr. Louis Appia, — there present, — a noted surgeon in the Italian wars of Napoleon III, who had at that date called a convention composed of delegates from the civilized nations of the whole world, formed their laws for international neutral action in all wars extending to all peoples, framed their treaty and presented it for signature, through the delegates present, to the nations which they respectively represented. In less than two years this compact had been signed and entered into by twenty-five distinct governments comprising all the civilised and some semi-civilized nations of the globe. With your kind permission, I will depart for a few moments from my narrative and speak of the nature of the international compact, which may not be familiar to you. This treaty, consisting of ten articles, and making material changes in the articles of war governing the medical and hos pital departments Of all armies, provided among other things for entire neutrality concerning all hospitals for the are of sick and wounded men; that they should not be subject to capture; that not only the sick and wounded themselves, but the persons in attendance upon them, as surgeons, hospital stewards, and nurses should be held neutral, and free from capture; that surgeons, chaplains, and nurses, in attendance upon the wounded of a battle-field at the time of its surrender, should be regarded as non-combatants, not subject to cap ture, and left unmolested to care for the wounded so long as any remained upon the field, and, when no longer needed for this, be safely escorted to their own lines, and given up; that soldiers too badly wounded to be capable Of again bearing arms should not be carried away as prisoners, but Offered to their own army if in retreat it could take them. They must be placed in hospitals and cared for, side by side with the wounded of the enemy; that all convoys of wounded or evacua tions of posts should be protected by absolute neutrality that all supplies designed for the use of the sick or wounded should be held as neutral and entirely exempt from capture by either belligerent army; that it should be the duty of both generals in command to apprise the inhabitants, in the vicin ity of a battle about to take place, of the fact that any house which should take in and entertain the wounded of either side would be placed under military protection, and remain so as long as any wounded remained therein, and that they would be also exempt from the quartering of troops and ordinary contributions of war, thus literally converting every house in the vicinity of a battle into a furnished hospital and making nurses of its inmates.