Louis Paul Amédée Appia was a Swiss surgeon with special merit in the area of military medicine. In 1863 he became a member of the Geneva "Committee of Five", which was the precursor to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Six years later he met Clara Barton, an encounter which had significant influence on Clara Barton's subsequent endeavours to found a Red Cross society in the United States and her campaign for an accession of the US to the Geneva Convention of 1864.
Louis Appia
Armband worn by Louis Appia on several battlefields, 1864, with dates and places written on the inside. On display at International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum.
Memorial commemorating the first use of the Red Cross symbol in an armed conflict by Louis Appia and Charles Van de Velde
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross is a humanitarian organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a three-time Nobel Prize laureate. The organization has played an instrumental role in the development of rules of war and promoting humanitarian norms.
Henry Dunant, author of A Memory of Solferino
Original document of the first Geneva Convention, 1864
The Red Cross in action in 1864
Memorial commemorating the first use of the Red Cross symbol in an armed conflict during the Battle of Dybbøl (Denmark) in 1864; jointly erected in 1989 by the national Red Cross societies of Denmark and Germany
