Details
DUNANT, Jean Henri (1828-1910). Un souvenir de Solfrino... Ne se vend pas. Geneva: Jules-Guillaume Fick, 1862.
4o (262 x 168 mm). Half-title; double-page lithographed map of the region around Solferino with color-printed key-blocks in three tints, by B. Mller after the author. Original purple bubble-grained cloth, spine lettered in gilt, gilt edges (spine faded and with old paper shelfmark label, joints and extremities slightly scuffed). Provenance: illegible German or Austrian library inkstamp on title-page.
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE of the work that led to the formation of the Red Cross. A Swiss philanthopist who undoubtedly knew of the work of Florence Nightingale, Dunant was present as an observer during the Italian war of 1859, and witnessed the terrible Battle of Solferino on 24 June 1859, one of the bloodiest battles of the entire nineteenth century. He wrote this straightforward and unsparing account of the battle and its heartbreaking and horrifying aftermath, when over 40,000 wounded soldiers were left to die with no medical treatment or even water other than that improvised by the local inhabitants under Dunant's direction, as a plea for the formation of an international organization of volunteers for the assistance of the wounded. The idea was by no means new, several attempts having been made since the mid-18th century to organize a means of protecting the wounded and establishing the inviolability of hospitals, but Dunant was the first to propose the creation of a broadly-based international humanitarian organization.
Although 1600 copies of Dunant's pamphlet were printed in November 1862 for his private distribution, only 400 copies were actually distributed. Demand for the work led Dunant to have another 1000 copies published a month later, with a reset title page calling the issue a "second edition". Dunant's eloquence bore immediate fruit: "within a year of its publication an unofficial international conference had met in Geneva and had formulated proposals that were submitted to an official international conference called by the Swiss government" (Grolier Medicine). The Geneva Convention creating the International Red Cross was signed in 1864. After suffering the loss of his fortune, Dunant sank into oblivion, but was "rediscovered" in 1895; in 1901 he was awarded, with the French economist Frdric Passy, the first Nobel Peace Prize. En franais dans le texte 284; Garrison-Morton 2166; Grolier Medicine 73A; Heirs of Hippocrates 1945; PMM 350; Waller 2639; Norman 670.
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FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE of the work that led to the formation of the Red Cross. A Swiss philanthopist who undoubtedly knew of the work of Florence Nightingale, Dunant was present as an observer during the Italian war of 1859, and witnessed the terrible Battle of Solferino on 24 June 1859, one of the bloodiest battles of the entire nineteenth century. He wrote this straightforward and unsparing account of the battle and its heartbreaking and horrifying aftermath, when over 40,000 wounded soldiers were left to die with no medical treatment or even water other than that improvised by the local inhabitants under Dunant's direction, as a plea for the formation of an international organization of volunteers for the assistance of the wounded. The idea was by no means new, several attempts having been made since the mid-18th century to organize a means of protecting the wounded and establishing the inviolability of hospitals, but Dunant was the first to propose the creation of a broadly-based international humanitarian organization.
Although 1600 copies of Dunant's pamphlet were printed in November 1862 for his private distribution, only 400 copies were actually distributed. Demand for the work led Dunant to have another 1000 copies published a month later, with a reset title page calling the issue a "second edition". Dunant's eloquence bore immediate fruit: "within a year of its publication an unofficial international conference had met in Geneva and had formulated proposals that were submitted to an official international conference called by the Swiss government" (Grolier Medicine). The Geneva Convention creating the International Red Cross was signed in 1864. After suffering the loss of his fortune, Dunant sank into oblivion, but was "rediscovered" in 1895; in 1901 he was awarded, with the French economist Frdric Passy, the first Nobel Peace Prize. En franais dans le texte 284; Garrison-Morton 2166; Grolier Medicine 73A; Heirs of Hippocrates 1945; PMM 350; Waller 2639; Norman 670.